ERICK 

BERRY 












CrOPmiGHT DEPOSIT. 



























SUNHELMET 

SUE 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


GIRLS IN AFRICA 
BLACK FOLK TALES 
PENNY WHISTLE 

HUMOO THE HIPPO AND LITTLE BOY BUMBO 

ILLUSTRATIONS OF CYNTHIA 

JUMA OF THE HILLS 

CAREERS OF CYNTHIA 

SOJO 

MOM DU JOS 

THE WINGED GIRL OF KNOSSOS 
STRINGS TO ADVENTURE 

THE HOUSE THAT JILL BUILT (AlHie MaXOIl) 





> 






If far treasure 

the c&vewis just tfte place!” 










































SUNHELMET 

SUE 



Eric\ Berry 



Boston 1936 New Yor\ 

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD 
COMPANY 





Copyright, 1936, by 


LOTHROP, LEE AND SHEPARD COMPANY 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be re¬ 
produced in any form without permission in writing 
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes 
to quote brief passages in connection with a review 
written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper. 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


GClA 971 G 9 



J f ~ 3 £' 




For ‘Dorinda’ 
in appreciation of 
charm and courage 




Contents 


CHAPTER 

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 
VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 
XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 


Stowaway .... 

A Parachute Jump to Africa 
By Cargo Boat to Nigeria 
The Sunhelmet becomes a Fixture 

To Yar?. 

The Secretary Hires a Secretary 
Alone in Africa 
The Little Judge . 

Wet Squeeze .... 

On the Trail of Yar . 

To Yar by a Shoot-the-Shoot 
Long Ago a Great City 
Another Archaeological Trip 
Evil Spirits .... 

The Heroine of Katsina 
A Real Discovery . 

Yar Yields up a Secret 
The Flight Again . 

Lost: Rum a Cave . 

Conspiracy .... 


PAGE 

II 

31 

50 

64 

72 

8l 

93 

109 

117 

123 

133 

144 

151 

158 
172 
186 
204 
213 
224 
. 232 






Chapter One 

STOWAWAY 

S ue may gave a final dab with the brush at her dark 
bangs and turned away from the mirror. With the 
gesture of habit she started to place the hairbrush on 
her dressing table, then setting her chin, opened the 
lid of a suitcase that stood on a chair by her bed and 
fitted the brush among the neatly packed contents. 
The suitcase really had no right to be there. It should 
have left this morning with the Dering’s luggage. 
And the trunk; that should have gone by express two 


ii 













SUNHELMET SUE 


days ago, south to New York for the cargo boat to 
Lagos, port of Nigeria. 

Only—there it stood, large and brown and new, 
packed to the lid with pretty light dresses, neat little 
cotton sports frocks and all the other things she had 
thought she would need for a season in tropical West 
Africa. That is, if the trunk had really been going to 
Nigeria instead of remaining just stolidly here. 

Through' the open window came the deep harsh 
note of a strange plane. She glanced out. Yes, there 
it was, one of the National Guards’ training machines, 
a fast, radial engine monoplane, an open seater of 
course. And that big shiny hulk of wood and linen 
and steel, just now side slipping to a skilful landing 
was what had robbed her of her trip to West Africa. 
Sue May slammed open the lid of the suitcase and 
banged her hairbrush back into its customary place 
on the dressing table. 

Not, of course, that she disliked airplanes; nobody 
in the Innis family could do that. Both she and her 
brother Karl out there in the flying field had pretty 
nearly cut their teeth on propeller-bosses, and Dad had 
been flying even before he had joined up as part of a 
famous fighting squadron in France. 

The note of the engine ceased momentarily, then 
whirred softly. That meant Karl was taxiing it into 
one of the hangars. Sue May glanced at her watch. 
Only half past eight. She wasn’t due on the field till 
ten. Plenty of time to jump in the car, just as she was, 


12 


STOW A WAY 


riding breeches, boots and soft silk shirt and run over 
to say farewell to the Derings. She might see the 
Derings in New York next week but . . . Sue May 
suppressed a sigh . . . she hadn’t any real faith in that 
next week idea. The Dering plan had been off and on 
and off again too many times for that. 

Hoping that Dad would be on the flying field she 
slipped quietly downstairs. She didn’t really want to 
see him just now. He was as sorry as she was over the 
way things had worked out, but far more optimistic 
over the future. It took all Dad could make to keep 
the family together and run the flying field. It wasn’t 
his fault that his son and daughter had had to throw 
in their little bank accounts to swing this last big 
demonstration of his. Actually Sue May had been the 
first to volunteer, even after her trunk was packed and 
her seat engaged for her to go with the Derings in the 
plane for New York. But she didn’t want, just now, 
to bear the additional strain of Dad’s sympathy. 

The ancient six cylinder Buick was garaged in what 
had been the old barn of the farmhouse. Gas in the 
tank. Yes . . . good. No need ever to look at anything 
else since nothing mechanical ever went wrong, noth¬ 
ing ever squeaked or rattled or even seemed to wear 
out if Karl had the care of it. 

Eyes squinting against the April glare she trundled 
out into the open and wheeled round the end of the 
house. And there, oh dear, was Dad, hatless, his old 
leather coat swinging open to his stride as he crossed 


*3 


SUNHELMET SUE 


from the nearest hangar. Sue May tried not to see him, 
not to notice the lifted hand, but his hearty “Hi there, 
wait a minute,” was too obvious to be ignored. The 
Buick purred to a halt. 

“You’re not forgetting?” he asked anxiously. “Ten 
o’clock was when they said they’d be here. We mustn’t 
keep them waiting.” 

Sue May managed a smile as she shook her head. 
“No, Dad. I’m just . . . that is, it’s just an errand.” 
Better not mention the Derings, it would make it look 
as though she minded . . . well ... as much as she 
really did mind. “I won’t be long.” Reassuringly. 

Dad leaned against the fence with an appearance of 
nonchalance, while one hand fidgeted with the keys 
in his pocket. “Amazing piece of luck,” he reiterated 
for perhaps the dozenth time, only half for Sue May’s 
sympathetic ear, “Banfil and Ackroyd driving through 
this way and willing to watch a test of the C 37.” 

Sue May slid into low. It’d be rude, she knew, to 
break away since he wanted so much to talk it all over 
again. This parachute test was so tremendously im¬ 
portant to him, to them all. But she hated his being 
so modest about it. The C 37 was so amazing, she be¬ 
lieved in it so completely that she felt any airplane man 
ought to be proud to come any number of hundred 
miles to see it tried out. And it was the C 37 that 
had robbed her of her trip to Africa. No, she couldn’t 
listen to Dad talk about it again. Not just now. 

“I’ve got to hurry, honest I have. Daren’t risk getting 


STOW A WAY 


back late,” she murmured, and rolled out into the 
highway. It was five miles to the Dering’s. Willow 
trees were a haze of cloudy catkins along full flowing 
streams, fences gleamed freshly whitewashed against 
the lush brilliance of new grass and from every 
barberry hedge and lilac breaking into leaf birds 
called, winging busily in the usual fever of spring 
house-building. But Sue May’s thoughts were neither 
on spring nor budding lilacs. Down inside she was 
still all bleak and wintry. Though goodness knows, 
she ruminated, this is a big day for the Innis family. 
A Big Day . . . like that, all in capitals. 

The C 37, known better as the Witch’s Broom, 
was Dad’s invention. C because it was the third type 
of harness he had invented, number 37 because no 
less than thirty-six parachutes of soft creamy-white 
silk had gone before it—and incidentally eaten deep 
into his own slight bank account. 

Sue May slowed for what looked like a speed cop, 
but turned out to be a garage mechanic whom she 
knew. 

“Hi, Bill!” She raised hand in greeting to the soiled 
grinning face and gathered speed again. 

The C 37 wasn’t so radically new; that was why it 
was so difficult to put over. It was just a tremendous 
improvement in every thread and curve, buckle and 
strap and cord. Looking back over the others Sue May 
was almost horrified to remember the flying carpets 
she had used in earlier parachute jumps; things that 


7 5 


SUNHELMET SUE 


might or might not open; parachutes whose silk might 
or might not hold the air; the double one that Dad had 
finally discarded because it was too complicated to re¬ 
fold; and there was one that always opened with such 
a snap it almost yanked you in two. 

She turned up a side road. Another two miles. She 
wished now that she’d been less hasty and had ’phoned 
ahead, for she might find them already gone. 

But as she rang the doorbell there was a reassuring 
patter of high heels. Mrs. Dering herself, a tooth¬ 
brush, an odd slipper and a scarf in one hand opened 
the door. 

“Oh, my dear! How nice of you! But I’m so upset. 
Gerald has gone on ahead to make some final arrange¬ 
ments. ... I didn’t have my bag quite packed. . . . 
I’m to meet him early for lunch at the airport lunch 
room. . . .” Vaguely she whirled up the stairs. Sue 
May followed, retrieving the scarf from the steps and 
gazing with amused consternation around a wildly dis¬ 
ordered bedroom. Good gracious, but she should have 
come earlier! 

“I know. It is awful, isn’t it?” chirped Mrs. Dering. 
“But I’m always this way the last minute and Gerald 
always runs away and leaves me to handle everything 
alone. All this,” she waved a toothbrush vaguely, “has 
to go into one suitcase.” And without doing anything 
to further the process she sank down helplessly on 
the foot of the bed. 

Sue May stood considering, one hand tugging at the 


16 


STOW A WAY 


curl over her left ear, then without a word she began 
to fold garments and to lay them in neat piles on bed 
and chairs. Two stockings, only, to a pair and they 
really ought to match. All the underwear in one heap. 
And those shoes off the top of that pretty sports hat. 
“Any tissue paper?” she asked. It was soothing to 
be busy with her hands, not just thinking about 
how she too should be off to New York and Africa 
today. 

“Oh, certainly.” Mrs. Dering produced tissue paper 
from beneath the bed where it had apparently blown 
and sank back on her heels in the middle of the rug. 
“Oh, Sue May, you’re such a comfort. If there weren’t 
these new laws about kidnapping I swear I’d take you 
somehow! I don’t see how Gerald will ever get along 
without you now, he’s so accustomed to a secretary who 
understands what he’s trying to do.” She cocked a 
bright birdlike head on one side and frowned in 
charming perplexity. 

“Gerald” was Professor Dering, an anthropologist 
already noted for his sympathetic insight into the 
native customs of West Africa, an expert on the little 
known primitive languages of the hill tribes bordering 
on the southern Sahara. For the past year and a half 
Sue May had been earning her pocket money and a 
little over by such secretarial work as she could do for 
him outside her school and study hours. 

Anthropology was all right, but it was archaeology 
that fascinated Sue May. Archaeology. There was a 


SUNHELMET SUE 


subject for you. Something real, something lasting, 
something you could study all your life and hardly do 
more than scratch the surface. The dictionary called it 
“the science that deduces a knowledge of past times 
from the study of their present remains.” But it meant 
a lot more than that said. 

It may have been because so much of Sue May’s own 
home background was in the air, so much of it con¬ 
cerned only with machines, with modern inventions, 
with what happened today and was going to happen 
tomorrow that she had unconsciously tried to balance 
her air-mindedness with a desire for knowledge of the 
past and of what lay beneath her in the earth. Geology 
would have done that of course, but geology wasn’t 
warm enough, human enough. Sue May wanted to 
embroider her knowledge of the past with a pattern 
of human contacts, human endeavors and ambitions. 
Not of today, or of tomorrow but of yesterday and the 
days and centuries and thousands of years before that. 
Ethnology and anthropology would have given her 
the human side of primitive life but they hadn’t enough 
of yesterday in them. 

So to the museums, Sue May had begun to go very 
early indeed, when she was ten, when she was eight or 
seven; she couldn’t remember when she hadn’t been 
hunting the museums and the libraries for more 
knowledge of archaeologists and excavations. Recon¬ 
structions of old ruins; what great men like Sir Flinders 
Petrie had deduced from the long barrows he excavated 


18 


STOW A WAY 


in England; from the ruins of ancient Egyptian cities; 
what men like Sir Arthur Evans and the various 
learned societies from international universities had 
reconstructed of the life of ancient Crete and from 
Ur of the Chaldees. These were a daily balance to 
planes and parachutes, wing angles and trimotors. 
The past was something that gave a purpose and a 
reason to the present and future. 

It was the museum that had brought her in touch 
with the Derings and especially with Professor Dering, 
a great man in his own line, with a whole string of 
impressive letters following his name. One day, two 
years ago, prowling about the museum library where 
by now Sue May was well known, she had reached for 
a book on one of the higher shelves. A long arm had 
reached above her. 

“Allow me,” said a pleasant voice, and the book de¬ 
scended to her own level. 

Outside the library door, an hour later, she saw him 
again and they sat down on one of the stone benches 
to talk. Sue May told him that she was first year 
High, that she was trying to specialize in science and 
modern language, because so many of the big scientific 
books were in French and German, and that on the side 
she was learning stenography. 

To her surprise, Professor Dering said he needed a 
secretary, someone he could train to his own way of 
working. It didn’t sound, he said, as though the young 
lady had much spare time, but how would she like to 


J 9 


SUNHELMET SUE 


try putting his notes in order? For a consideration 
naturally. 

How would she like it! Sue May knew Professor 
Dering’s books. She would have taken on the job for 
nothing, have paid for the privilege. Anthropology 
was one of the sciences she must know about. If you 
were going to dig for ancient civilizations and knowl¬ 
edge of primitive peoples, reconstruct how they lived 
in the past, you had to know something about present 
day primitive peoples too. That was how Sue May 
became part-time secretary to Professor Dering. 

And since the Professor lived mentally in the civiliza¬ 
tion of primitive Africa and Mrs. Dering cultivated an 
attractive helplessness, Sue May’s duties ranged far 
beyond those of the usual secretary. Not only did she 
struggle with the elements of the Haussa language, 
which was the most used, semi-Arabic speech of West 
Africa, and attempt to sort out the main racial types 
of Nigeria, so that she could understand a little of what 
the Professor was writing about; but she organized 
every intricate detail of their coming expedition. 

Of course she couldn’t possibly know all that was 
wanted on such an expedition,- and the apparently 
helpless Mrs. Dering would mention, just accidentally, 
that quinine bisulphate for tropical malaria was of 
no use compared with quinine hydrochloride, and that 
a sunhelmet in an African July was of little use without 
the kind of waterproof cover sold by Fortnum & Mason 
in London. In contrast the absent-minded Professor 


20 


STOW A WAY 


would run through a five-page list of stores, apparently 
thinking of something quite different and see at once 
what small item was missing or could be improved. 
But to Sue May was the labor and the honor. 

She had also grown very interested in primitive man, 
both because it was a wide and fascinating subject and 
because it was the nearest she could get to archaeology, 
the study of ancient peoples. 

All that seemed a long way now from her present 
task. Her hands continued to pack, rhythmically, 
steadily folding, tucking in, arranging in neat order. 
A long way, this, from digging up stone implements 
and ancient remains as she had imagined herself doing, 
in some distant tropical jungle or African desert. Only 
once did she falter. That was when she lifted a bright 
negligee and a pile of photographs slipped to the floor. 
She stooped to recover them; pictures of Zimbabwe, 
those walls and towers of rude stone work, built it was 
thought, by some forgotten offshoot of the Zulus of 
eastern Africa and recently brought to public notice. 
It was a woman who had done the excavation. “What 
woman has done woman can do. . . .” 

“Oh,” exclaimed Mrs. Dering from her seat on the 
floor, “don’t pack those, I’m sure Gerald has finished 
with them. How efficient you are, Sue May. I do 
hope that something will happen. . . . Gerald said 
that he’d hold your seat in the plane till the last pos¬ 
sible moment.” 

The Derings were taking a plane for New York this 

21 


i 


SUNHELMET SUE 

afternoon, where they’d have a bare two days to finish 
with equipment before catching a cargo boat, the 
only direct route for West Africa. There wasn’t a 
ghost of a hope that in so short a time a miracle would 
happen to let her come by train and join them, for 
even though Professor Dering’s passage and salary was 
paid by the Government that was employing him for 
his present task, and an allowance was made for a 
secretary, no Government had thought that he’d want 
a secretary all the way from the States to Africa. Sue 
May had planned to pay her own way out. If it hadn’t 
been for the C 37 her trunk would now be on its way 
to New York and she herself about to take flight with 
the Derings. She must certainly remember to ’phone 
and cancel that seat they were holding for her. 

“You will keep up your studies won’t you, my dear?” 
urged Mrs. Dering. 

Sue May nodded silently. Oh yes, she’d keep up her 
studies, though what use would she ever have for 
Haussa now? . . . scarcely a language you could use 
in daily conversation . . . and she could never hope to 
get another such chance to go to Africa. She stuffed 
stockings into the toe of a slipper and wedged it into 
place in the fast filling suitcase. “There’s no chance of 
my coming out on a later boat. If we get an entering 
wedge with today’s demonstration, Dad’ll probably 
need me to help with more of them.” It had been dif¬ 
ficult to get Dad’s consent to this trip in the first place, 
she’d had to work for extra high marks in school to 


22 


STOW A WAY 


prove that the outside work didn’t afTect her studies. 
And he would never let her go out to Africa, alone, 
without the Dering’s chaperonage. 

“Oh, but you mustn’t give up hope.” Mrs. Dering, 
who had always had pretty much what she wanted, 
couldn’t believe that anything might be really im¬ 
possible. “It’s just a matter of making up your mind 
and having courage, you know. And a girl who risks 
her neck three or four times a week in parachute jump¬ 
ing must have lots more courage than poor little 
me.” 

Sue May didn’t know whether to be amused or cross. 
There didn’t seem much connection between parachute 
jumping and working at archaeology with Professor 
Dering. “That’s the other slipper in your hand, isn’t 
it?” she tactfully switched the subject. “Better let me 
pack it. And where’s your toothbrush holder? Are 
you sure Jones’ garage know what time they have to 
send the car for you? I’d take you down myself but 
I have to be on the field at ten to meet some experts 
and demonstrate the C 37.” 

Her departure and farewells were tinged with some 
anxiety as to whether Mrs. Dering really did under¬ 
stand that she was leaving by plane for New York that 
afternoon. “You won’t forget,” reiterated Sue May 
amid somewhat tearful goodbyes, “that the plane leaves 
City Airport at one thirty. And tell the Professor that 
I’m just sick over not seeing him before he leaves. 
I’ll keep track of his articles as they come out in the 


23 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Times and send him six clippings of each issue. . . . 
Oh well, never mind, I’ll write it. . . . Goodbye, 
darling, you’ve been sweet to me. . . .” 

As the Buick slipped into the highway the spring 
landscape was blurred to a fog of green. Sue May shook 
the moisture out of her eyes, fumbled for a handker¬ 
chief, and dabbed at her lashes with, regrettably, the 
sleeve of her blouse. Then she grinned firmly. She 
asked herself, Why go all tragic over this, which had 
seemed the biggest chance to do the one thing she 
wanted most in her life? This very morning she had 
a chance to put over the biggest thing in the history of 
the Innis family, the C 37. Concentrate on that, Sue 
May, and be darned to West Africa! 

With almost a physical wrench she switched her 
mind from vain regrets to the business ahead. No 
more point in casting regretful thoughts towards the 
possible archaeology of Nigeria than in wishing your¬ 
self back in the plane, once you had bailed out. That 
particular jump had been made. Look round now 
and see where you were going to land. Hurrying back 
towards the Innis flying field she considered the plane 
that Karl had hired for the morning from the City 
Airport. They had needed it, a military type plane 
with open body so that she might get out more easily. 
Dad’s own planes were all enclosed for passenger flight 
and anyway were getting a bit too obsolete. 

There were three men coming; one a Major who 
had been with Dad in France and had some important 


STOW A WAY 


official position on the board for Government planes. 
Another was, she remembered, a Mr. Ackroyd with a 
more commercial interest in parachutes and flying. 
Yes, the chance of a lifetime, as Dad said. It meant that 
for the first time the C 37 would have an opportunity 
to show its qualities. There was plenty of demand for 
it, individual pilots had wanted it, but it had to receive 
the stamp of Government approval and be licensed 
and manufactured in just such a manner before it could 
be put on the market. 

Would it be better if she got into proper flying kit, 
leather breeches, padded coat and all that? Sue May 
considered the question as she turned the Buick’s nose 
into the Innis driveway, just dodging a pompous long 
blue limousine that was rolling out with three some¬ 
what impressive male passengers. No, probably not. 
Even if the plane were open she didn’t need all that 
paraphernalia, and she preferred to bail out in her 
usual costume. 

She parked the car neatly above the oil drip tray in 
the garage, and closed the door without banging it. 
Karl was fussy about things like that. Glancing at 
her wrist watch she decided that she’d better report at 
the hangar so they wouldn’t worry about her not being 
on hand. 

The engine of the red plane was tuning up. To Sue 
May’s critical ears it didn’t sound too good. Some¬ 
one was whistling as he slid back the doors of the 
autogiro hangar. Not much activity on the field this 


25 


SUNHELMET SUE 


morning. The blue hills to the west looked sleepily 
down on the wide sunny meadowland. 

Good, there was Karl. He’d swept a length of smooth 
concrete, spread the parachute out upon it and stood 
waiting. 

“Quick release or ordinary?” he queried. 

She took a look at the windsock hanging listlessly 
from its mast. “Ordinary, I guess,” she decided. Not 
a breath of air was stirring. It was only when there was 
a wind that you really needed the quick release so that 
you could snap yourself clear of the parachute the 
moment you landed, not taking a chance on getting 
dragged through trees and over ditches or cliffs. 

“I guessed so.” Karl indicated the cream-colored 
silk smoothed out upon the concrete. “But you’ll have 
to check your folding and packing. I’d like to feel 
it wasn’t all my fault if some day the thing didn’t open 
and you made a dent in the earth. 

That was ridiculous of course. If you could depend 
on anybody in the whole wide world you could depend 
upon Karl. But he’d always insisted that she must in¬ 
spect her own parachute. She watched his careful 
fingers fold the delicate silk, checking the folds by eye, 
measuring them by handspans, testing each loop of 
the elastic. Those elastic bands were no special patent 
of the Innis ’chute but were used on most parachutes 
so that the thing would open progressively in a series of 
little pops and not allow the full weight of the body to 
come at once, with damaging strain, on the lines and 


26 


STOWAWAY 


fabric. At the end of the process, at what corresponded 
to the mouth of the bottom edge of the parachute Sue 
May had to lend a hand. For here something had to be 
folded in under pressure. That particular thing was the 
secret of the Witch’s Broom; its purpose was to make 
sure the ’chute would open, and not leave that all- 
important matter to mere chance. 

Last of all, the release cord which held the neatly 
folded bundle together. Not till you pulled this cord 
did the parachute spread itself in the air above you. If 
you pulled it too early there was danger of the 
parachute’s catching and tearing itself on the edge of 
the plane. And if you forgot to pull it at all or were 
frozen with fright, well that was all there was to that 
particular parachute jumper. A rather important 
little cord, that. 

And that packed the ’chute and the rubber cords of 
the non-spinning attachment. The whole thing looked 
rather like a good sized cushion. Sue May checked 
over the harness and slid her legs through the two 
loops, buckling on the broad belt about her waist. 
Everything seemed all right, and the parachute lay 
against her back, no more uncomfortable than a ruck¬ 
sack, and not as heavy. She put on her crash-helmet 
but left the straps loose. It was hard to hear with them 
fastened. 

“Better look over the bus now,” Karl counseled. 
“Find out where you’re going to step when you put 
your foot on the wing. Make sure you don’t shove 


27 


SUNHELMET SUE 


a hoof through the fabric and get hung by an ankle.” 

It was a noble looking beast, a low winged mono¬ 
plane with one of the very latest engines. Karl started 
to explain its points as one might those of a favorite 
horse. The red plane which had been warming up now 
swept a cloud of dust around them as it taxied to the 
takeoff, opened to a thunderous roar, surged forward, 
then up and up, turning silver as the sun caught it, 
then to a dark spot against the clear sky. 

Sue May heard a shout behind her and turned. There 
was Dad hurrying towards them waving his arms and 
calling. Hurray, the people must have come! 

But Dad’s first words dispelled that hope. Killed it. 
Even buried it. 

“A washout, the whole thing’s a washout. They’ve 
come and gone.” Anger and pain were in his voice. 
“They didn’t even wait to see me. Left a note.” Dad 
stopped, his arms hanging limply at his sides. Somehow 
he looked ten years older. “It wouldn’t have taken ten 
minutes, twenty at the most to have shown them.” 

Karl was the first to recover from the shock. “So 
they came and went without even . . .” Somehow 
he couldn’t finish the sentence. 

“In such a blazing hurry that they couldn’t wait to 

see me, just left a note,” repeated Dad. 

« 

Why, those must have been the men in the big blue 
limousine! Gosh, if Sue May had known, she thought, 
she’d have sideswiped ’em with the Buick, done any¬ 
thing to keep them here, by main force if necessary. 


28 


STOW A WAY 


But it couldn’t be true, it simply couldn’t! All their 
hopes, Karl’s little savings, her own trip to West Africa 
and Dad’s work of years just dissolving like this. 

But Karl was still clinging to hope. “Did they say 
anything about coming again, or dropping in on the 
way back?” 

Mr. Innis searched his pockets for the note, re¬ 
membered that it was back in the house where he had 
crumpled it and tossed it down. 

“Because if they didn’t,” continued Karl, “we’ll cut 
our losses. I’ll take the plane back to the City Airport 
as quick as I can. The less time we have it, the less 
we’ll have to pay for it.” Almost at a trot he and Dad 
disappeared towards the house. 

Sue May would have liked to sit right down and 
howl. This, she thought, had been the most horrible, 
the beastliest day of her whole life. Archaeology 
washed out. No goodbye to the Professor, no chance 
of following the Derings; she couldn’t hope for such 
a chance again. And now that sacrifice too had just 
been in vain, it hadn’t done a thing to help Karl and 
Dad. 

Rocking on her heels on the concrete her eyes took 
in the plane, unthinkingly, automatically. What had 
Karl said about flying back with it? It was returning 
to the City Airport in a few minutes, if Dad had been 
right about the note. And it was from the City Airport 
in two hours that Professor Dering was to take off 
by plane. 


29 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Her sombre eyes lightened. Why shouldn’t some¬ 
body at least get some one little thing out of this whole 
horrid mess of mishaps? Why not? She turned and 
glanced back towards the house. No Karl, no Dad in 
sight. No one else was watching her and even if there 
had been, no one would think anything of her move¬ 
ments. She approached the plane, set one booted foot 
on the toehold at the side, hauled herself swiftly over 
the edge, slid down inside. There was room behind 
the back seat, just clear of the aileron cables. Scrooging 
down she tucked herself in there. 

Five minutes later Karl’s voice sounded just outside. 
“Back in time for lunch, Dad. You’d better look after 
Sue May. . . . Wonder where she went . . His 
voice raised. “Sue . . . Sue May.” No answer. “Get¬ 
ting done out of her archaeological trip with that 
whathisname man, and then losing this chance today, 
she’ll be mad enough for anything. Guess you’ll find 
her trying to bite the tires off the Buick. . . .” 

There was the usual routine of starting, warming up 
the engine, the chocks being pulled away from the 
wheels. Then a sudden roar, a gentle bumping and 
they were up. 


30 


Chapter Two 

A PARACHUTE JUMP TO AFRICA 

I t was snug in the fuselage, maybe a bit too snug. 

Also the moment the tail rose as they attained flying 
speed Sue May was almost standing on her head. Better 
let Karl make height before she showed herself, even 
get some way on her trip towards the city landing 










SUNHELMET SUE 


grounds before shifting forward and changing the 
balance of the plane. Strange that he hadn’t noticed the 
different loading from when he’d flown it over. He 
certainly would have in one of his own planes. She 
put it down to this one’s being strange and thanked 
her lucky star, which, up to this moment hadn’t 
been very efficient today. 

The blast from the engine eased to a benign roar. 
That meant they’d climbed enough and had flattened 
out. Sue May loosened a couple of small wingbolts 
on the back of the seat behind which she crouched, 
tipped the seat forward and scrambled cautiously over. 
Sitting down on the edge of it she tightened the bolts 
again. Karl never turned his head. 

He must have corrected unconsciously for the change 
in balance. Sue May looked around her. Quite a lot 
of gadgets that she didn’t know. Those must be 
machine gun mountings, though there were no ma¬ 
chine guns in sight. Dual controls too, in case the 
pilot got shot, for this was a fighting plane. Altimeter, 
speed gauge, oil gauge, gas gauge and several other 
instruments; she glanced over her instrument board 
at Karl’s shoulder. All seemed well so there’d be no 
danger now in getting his attention. 

Where was that stub of a pencil, the little pad of 
paper she always carried when she was going to bail 
out? You couldn’t talk to the pilot in the open ma¬ 
chines used for parachute jumping. 

A smile twinkled in her brown eyes as she scribbled. 


A PARACHUTE JUMP TO AFRICA 

But standing up to pass the paper forward she was 
startled by the force of the wind. The slip-stream from 
the propeller seemed to want to tear her head off, and 
thrusting her hand forward was like trying to drive it 
against the force of a firehose. Not only was the speed 
of the plane struggling against her, but the airblast 
from the propeller, an airblast of perhaps two hundred 
miles per hour. 

She felt the paper drawn from her fingers and had 
an impish desire to see the expression on Karl’s face 
when he read it. 

“Drive to the City Airport, James, were seeing the 
Derings off for Africa!’ 

You couldn’t tell anything from the mere top of 
his helmet, but he was writing and in a moment the 
pad came back. 

“Sue, you brat! I could cheerfully wring your little 
necl{.” 

Sue May giggled. This was rather fun. You didn’t 
often get a rise out of Karl unless you committed some 
fool carelessness about the car. And that was different 
of course. She glanced up. Karl’s fingers were wrig¬ 
gling above his head. Oh, he wanted the pad again. 
Sue May thrust it into his hand and waited for the next 
communication. When it came it was a shock. 

“Military plane not allowed to land lady passengers 
at City Airport. Have to take you bac\!’ 

Gosh, that was true! She hadn’t considered that in 
the fever of her sudden brain wave. No, she couldn’t 


33 


SUNHELMET SUE 


let him take her back, that would mean a longer and 
hence a bigger rental for the plane, and it was Karl’s 
savings as well as hers that was paying for it. She 
wrote hastily. 

“Than\s no. Yll wal\ bac\.” 

The pad was returned with a large penciled ques¬ 
tion mark in its center. Steadying her wrist against 
the vibration of the powerful engine, Sue May scrawled 
on a new sheet. “Got my parachute, goof!” and passed 
it over. 

Karl’s head bobbed to one side. He was cocking an 
eye over the edge of the plane, scanning the flat, chess¬ 
board-like landscape over which they seemed to hang 
poised like a humming-bird. She followed suit. You 
couldn’t just land anywhere with a parachute. If you 
landed in water and tangled with your ’chute you 
didn’t stand much chance. To get mixed up with trees 
or telegraph wires was about as bad. Usually of course 
you bailed out over a nice smooth landing ground, but 
each one of the fields below, though flat enough, seemed 
to sprout a farm building, a clump of trees, a stream 
or something equally hazardous. You could be almost 
sure of barbed wire too. The only part of the country 
that she felt was safe was the new arterial road which 
ran almost straight past Dad’s air field to the city and 
the City Airport. That was too new, thank Heaven, 
to be built up with houses or even hot-dog stands 
and was absolutely smooth landing if one could only 
hit it. 


34 


A PARACHUTE JUMP TO AFRICA 

Karl seemed to have the same idea. “How about 
road?” came the scrawled message. 

“O.K.” scribbled Sue May. “Pick me up in your car 
as you come back if I don’t get a lift home first.” 

He was losing height now. Of course the higher 
you were the safer your jump as it gave more time for 
the chute to open. But with the C 37 you could cut 
things pretty close. They were over the wide, six-car 
road now with the broad grass plot down the middle. 
Circling, flying back over it. Now he swung off and 
crossed it once in each direction. He was trying to 
gauge the wind. There was a bit of smoke from a 
chimney too and he scribbled back a report which 
checked with the chimney smoke. 

“Wind is straight along road towards city. Speed 
about twenty to thirty!’ 

That meant miles per hour. Stiffer than she had 
thought possible from the limp windsock on the flying 
field. But that sometimes happened because the home 
field was a bit sheltered by the hills to the west. 

Sue May fastened her helmet, wrote “O.K.” on the 
pad and passed it across. It came back: 

“O.K. nothing. Wind too strong. Am taking you 
home.” 

She bit her lip and glanced over the side again. No, 
no, he mustn’t do that. What she saw below increased 
her determination, a car that might or might not hold 
someone she was especially anxious to see. She raised 
head and shoulders from the protection of the airplane 


35 


SUNHELMET SUE 


body and was thrown violently back against the seat. 
Terrific, the combined force of wind and slipstream. 
Never had she bailed out from so fast a plane. Could 
she manage it? 

Fingers took tighter hold, one leg swung out over 
the side. A metal footplate on the wing. Somehow, 
though a thousand invisible hands seemed to thrust 
her back and back, she must manage to reach that. She 
was out, still clinging precariously before Karl’s head 
turned. No chance for any further written notes, but 
Karl understood. Sue May had taken decision out of 
his control, now all he could do was co-operate. 

Eyes weeping with the strength of the wind, eyelids 
forced back so that she couldn’t close them, but still 
she was aware of the world slowly spinning beneath 
her; that was as Karl turned the plane. He nodded. 
That was the first signal he always gave. 

Sue May nodded confirmation. She was ready. 

Karl’s head moved again. Then one counted One 
. . . two . . . three, and he dipped the nose of the 
plane in a short dive. With all her strength Sue May 
thrust herself forward, leaning against the wind almost 
as against a solid wall. A short shuffle sideways and she 
stepped backward calmly as you would step off a bus. 
Into nothingness. 

She felt the blood rush through her body, tingle 
quickly to fingers and toes as she dropped like a stone. 
These few seconds were the most exciting part, when 
you delayed opening the parachute to make sure you 

3 6 


A PARACHUTE JUMP TO AFRICA 

were free of all entanglements. The ring of the release 
cord was round her finger. A gentle pull, then a sound 
above her, plop, plop, plop; the little elastic bands on 
the ’chute. 

And with each plop an invisible hand gave a gentle 
tug at the harness. Now came the strange sensation of 
being disembodied; real flying, this. Far more what 
flying should feel like than in the noisy rush and roar 
and vibration of the big motor. You felt as a jellyfish 
must feel, floating silently on a sunny warm sea, and 
looking up you could see the friendly great umbrella, 
white and golden with the sun upon it, blue in the 
shadows. Beneath, as the parachute ceased spinning, 
an earth frozen into immobility. It might have been 
dead except for the sound of a distant farm dog and the 
honk of cars along the highway. 

Sue May began to sing. Nobody could hear her up 
here, as sound travels upward, not down. It was fun, 
this singing into the void as she’d always done since 
her very first jump. An absurd little skylark song 
of triumph. It was useful too, because, like swallowing, 
it relieved the changing pressure of air on the ear¬ 
drums. Her eyes no longer streamed now that she was 
just floating. The cars on the road were more distinct. 
What if she could intercept Mrs. Dering and go on to 
the port to see the Professor after all ? She looked down, 
counting them. About ten coming from the city. Then 
as she swung round with the ’chute she could see 
almost the same number that had passed. Curious how 


SUNHELMET SUE 


squat and square they looked. One of them though, 
the particular one she had spotted from the plane before 
she jumped, in fact the reason for her coming down 
here, was a luxurious brute, almost double the length 
of the old Model T behind it. 

That was some way behind where she would land. 
If that was the car she thought, it must have stopped 
for gas after leaving the note for Dad. She chuckled 
to herself. They’d get a demonstration of the C 37 
now, whether they wanted it or not. 

A siren shrilled along the black ribbon of road. What 
on earth was that for ?—a fire engine or an ambulance 
probably. Then she saw that the cars streaming 
countrywards were being halted like beads stopped 
upon a string. People descending from their cars were 
craning upwards. But Sue May now had her own 
problems. 

Karl had been right about the wind. Not a breath 
of air upon her of course, for she was travelling with 
it like the jellyfish in a current of water, but the ground 
was slipping away behind her faster than she liked. 
Thank goodness there were no trees here, along this 
new road, no telegraph lines. Reaching up to the cord 
she began to spill air from one side of the parachute to 
bring herself more directly over the center of the 
road. Wouldn’t do to slap one of those windscreens as 
she swept along at twenty-five miles an hour. 

That lawnlike strip in the middle of the road looked 
inviting if she could only make it. These were her best 


A PARACHUTE JUMP TO AFRICA 

riding breeches, donned specially for today’s demonstra¬ 
tion and she didn’t want to land in a muddy bit or a 
grease patch. 

Dare not spill any more air now. Need all the sup¬ 
port just before the bump. Have to face the direction 
you’re going. Then you get thrown on your face 
with your arms to save you, not the back of your 
skull. 

The ground swept up with increasing speed. No 
time to look at cars now. Only to hope. 

Bend your knees, Sue May. Relax, ready for the 
bump. Just as you would in a jump from a wall. 

Feet on the ground and running like blazes to catch 
up with herself. One hand fumbled for the quick 
release at her belt. Then she remembered. She had 
told Karl the 4 ordinary.” That darned old deceitful 
windsock again. 

The parachute no longer holding her up, but hurt¬ 
ling her forwards, sprawled on her face and still trav¬ 
elling. She made a snatch at the ropes, trying to spill 
wind again and so collapse the parachute. But the 
pull was too strong. She might break an arm that way 
if her wrist got caught in the rope. 

The blue limousine again. Someone had leaped 
from the car just ahead of her, hurled himself bodily 
into the billowing folds of silk, collapsed them, and 
was lost to sight beneath the vast mass of the umbrella. 
As he did so, Sue May felt the drag on her harness 
lessen, then cease. She knew what she had to do. 


39 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Gathering herself to her knees she flung herself for¬ 
ward, pinning down the remaining folds. Something 
struggled beneath her, choked and swore lustily. 

The parachute ought not to be struggling like this, 
now that the wind wasn’t under it. Sue May threw 
herself on all fours rather like a seal diving into cream- 
colored waves. Her head emerged from the folds to 
encounter the astonished eyes of another seal, a mas¬ 
culine one sprawled in a precisely similar position. 

“Oh . . . I’m sorry . . .” began Sue May somewhat 
formally. 

“C 37 I presume!” snapped the other seal. Then 
shrouded alike in the vast mass of cream silk the two 
collapsed on the curb of the parkway choking with 
laughter. 

Sue May gurgled and giggled and choked. The mas¬ 
culine seal choked and giggled and gurgled. Ha! Ha! 
Ha! Ho! Ho! Ho! It was such a relief to laugh. She 
had been scared there, really frightened for just a mo¬ 
ment. And the man in the parachute gown might have 
felt the same way. 

From the parked limousine ahead of them two 
figures, more men, had come forth. They also were 
holding their sides with laughter. A worried young 
motorcycle cop just arriving on the driveway ... it 
must have been his siren that had stopped the cars . . . 
joined in the ridiculous situation. Then one of the 
men from the car came up, grinning, and offered his 
hand. 


40 



“ Oh, I’m Sot-try 1 ”b<?yatv 
-Sue May, Somewhat formally. 































































































































































































































A PARACHUTE JUMP TO AFRICA 

“Can I help you with the buckles?” he said. “Are 
you Miss Innis ? I must say you take a unique method 
of demonstrating your father’s parachute.” 

In a moment she was free. The other occupant of 
the cream-colored silk was dusting off his knees, and 
bundling up the folds. Somebody who had run across 
the grass strip, he looked like a newspaper man, was 
hastily dismissed. “No. No publicity on this please. 
I’m Major Banfil. Mind what I say now! Beat it, son- 
nie.” 

The speed cop produced some string from his pocket. 
This, with the belt of the harness served to confine 
the ’chute into a bulky parcel. One couldn’t refold it 
here. 

A lift? Yes, Sue May would be glad of that. The 
drone of an engine overhead. From the limousine 
window she glanced out to see Karl dip a wing in 
farewell. It said as plainly as words. “Good work, 
brat. I see that you’re going in my direction. Meet you 
later,” and zoomed off towards the airport. 

Sue May had rather dreaded this part of the demon¬ 
stration. Of course she hadn’t very long, only a few 
minutes from the time she glimpsed that bright blue 
bonnet from the sky to the moment she sank back in 
the cushioned seat, bowling along towards town. But 
she needn’t have dreaded it; that laughter had broken 
the ice. They already knew who she was, already, it 
seemed, knew what the C 37 could do. 

Remembering first to thank her brother seal, she ex- 


45 


SUNHELMET SUE 


plained why she hadn’t worn the harness with the 
quick release this morning. 

“That’s right,” said the one named Ackroyd. “I 
noticed the limp sock as we passed your flying field.” 

He would of course. Sue May could see right away 
that he was a flying man. Well, of course he would 
need to be, in his job. 

“Wasn’t it rather dangerous, doing such a short 
jump?” asked the round faced one, whose name seemed 
to be Major Banfil. “I noticed the ’chute didn’t open 
right away.” An eye for technical details had the 
Major. 

Sue May shook her head, meanwhile wishing she 
could get just a brief glimpse of herself in a mirror 
somehow. Never would she fly again without a vanity 
case. You couldn’t tell just whom you’d descend on 
socially. 

“No,” she said, switching back to the question in 
hand. She’d delayed pulling the cord on purpose. 
And that gave her the chance to remark that of course 
the C 37 couldn’t possibly fail to open. 

“Not?” queried the Major in a sceptical tone. 

“No, it couldn’t hang fire an instant,” continued 
Sue May in tones of assurance, “once you’ve pulled 
the cord. It doesn’t depend on the speed of your fall to 
open it, on the air getting under it. It opens of itself.” 

The third man, a little gingery person with a fox¬ 
like, pleasant face leaned forward in his seat. “The 
method, I suppose, is the secret?” 


44 


A PARACHUTE JUMP TO AFRICA 

Sue May hesitated. “Not exactly. The method’s 
been used before but Dad’s improvement on it is quite 
new. And most of the pilots we know want to use 
our ’chute instead of the obsolete official one, but it’s 
against the regulations.” 

“Obsolete, h’m?” snapped the gingery little man. 

“Yes, obsolete,” Sue May was firm. “I wouldn’t trust 
my life to most of them and I’ve bailed out Heaven 
knows how many hundred times.” She intercepted a 
humorous glance between the Major and Mr. Ack- 
royd. Perhaps she’d been too outspoken, but she did 
know her facts. 

The gingery man wanted details and more details; 
the number of panels, superficial area, the cord. Sue 
May had all these and more at her fingertips. 

“Hmm,” the foxy one grunted, then returned to the 
attack. “We’ve seen this unofficial test. Now what 
sort of test would you propose between the C 37 and 
the official ’chute which you condemn?” 

That was an easy one. Sue May had often thought 
about it and she’d heard the pilots talk it over with 
Dad too. She’d bail out half a dozen times, twenty 
times, and she knew several pilots that would do it 
for them if there was any objection to a girl in so 
official a test. All this demonstration from lower 
down than anyone would dare to with the official 
’chute. 

“Care to take her on?” Major Banfil quirked a 
quizzical eyebrow at the gingery little man. 


45 


SUNHELMET SUE 

For the first time the other man smiled. “Somehow 
I think not.” 

“It wouldn’t be fair of course,” Sue May came to his 
aid. “Dad says you could pretty nearly use C 37 off a 
high bridge. And his next parachute—” 

“Will be to save a man who falls downstairs!” 
sniffed the Major, but he chuckled. 

They were turning in to the airport now. “By the 
way,” asked Mr. Ackroyd. “I suppose this was where 
you wanted to go?” 

She explained that her brother would be waiting for 
her here with his car, but she was still watching for 
some word or sign from the three, trying hard to guess 
their reactions to the C 37, her demonstration and her 
selling talk. They weren’t angry, she was sure of that. 
But she couldn’t guess enough of each man’s person¬ 
ality, even of each one’s particular job in the airplane 
business to get any result. Were they going to see Dad 
for a further tryout, make another appointment, a real 
one this time? 

The gingery man paused with his hand on the door 
of the car. “This your brother?” he bobbed a head 
towards Karl, crossing from a hangar. “I’d like a few 
words with him, Miss Innis.” 

“Don’t scold him for letting me bail out there,” 
begged Sue May worriedly. “I stowed away and he 
didn’t know I was going to jump till I was already over 
the side.” 

“Oh that?” No, the gingery one didn’t mean to 

4 6 


A PARACHUTE JUMP TO AFRICA 

mention it even. “Glad to have met you,” he added 
briefly. It was Major Banfil who said he hoped they’d 
meet soon again and asked. “I suppose you’re going to 
be a pilot later?” 

Well at least he’d said “later”, not “when you grow 
up.” Sue May, with her mind all on the Derings now 
and whether they’d be here and how soon till their 
plane left for New York, shook her head. “Pilot? No, 
I don’t know anything about planes really, except to go 
places in them. I’m going to be an archaeologist.” 
She nodded goodbye and dashed off towards the big 
airport center. 

But Mrs. Dering hadn’t arrived, the Professor was 
nowhere in sight. Hurrying back she saw that Karl 
was free now, had just left the little gingery man. 
Better ask him to pick up the ’chute from the big 
limousine. But Karl was too excited, almost, to listen. 

Oh bother the old ’chute. Yes, of course he’d get it 
from the car. But what in heck had she done to the 
three old geezers ? The one with the red hair was head 
of the purchasing department for the City Airport and 
he’d made a definite date, definite mind you, for an 
official test, with their own pilots, of the C 37 tomor¬ 
row at four. Said if it did half the things Miss Innis 
claimed for it there was more than a prospect of large- 
scale manufacture for it immediately . . . and Karl 
paused to catch his breath. 

Sue May forgot to watch for the Derings and did a 
jig step on the path. “Oh Karl—we must phone Dad 


47 


SUNHELMET SUE 


right away—he’ll just about die with joy—oh poor 
Dad!” She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry. She 
wanted to hug someone. But Karl’d faint if she hugged 
him right here. What was he saying? 

“And look here, brat, this African trip? Got your 
place in the plane still?” 

“Why . . . why yes. Mrs. Dering said the Profes¬ 
sor hadn’t cancelled it, and I forgot to, though I meant 
to do it.” 

“Well then, looky.” He grabbed her arm. “I’ll hurl 
round to the bank and get the money. My account’ll 
stand it to get you down there. On the strength of this 
promise you got from ginger whiskers . . .” 

What on earth was he raving about! It took Sue May 
a minute or two to switch her mind back from the C 37 
to West Africa. When she did— 

“Passport?” he was asking, worriedly. 

“Oh yes, I got that weeks ago—don’t you remem¬ 
ber ? But it’s home in my top bureau drawer.” 

“Right. We’ll get that. Anything else? Oh Heavens 
yes, your luggage.” His face fell. “You can’t go off 
without clothes.” 

She would have gone in a bathing suit. But that 
wasn’t necessary. Bless her idiocy for not having un¬ 
packed after all! She raced beside him as he hurried 
to the car. Yes, her trunk could go down by train to¬ 
night and would just catch the boat and as for her 
suitcase, that too was all ready. And if he couldn’t 
get home and back in time she could borrow clothes 


A PARACHUTE JUMP TO AFRICA 

from Mrs. Dering, just for New York, they were almost 
of a size. Would he hug Dad for her? 

He would not! Karl switched on the engine and 
grinned. “Go wash your face, brat,” he commanded 
in the old brotherly tones, but there was immense 
pride behind them. And he slid into low gear. 

“Hi,” Sue May, remembering, raised her voice above 
the sound of the motor as he rolled away down the 
drive. “Put my brush from the dressing table into the 
case, will you? . . .” 

She turned back towards the airport. There were 
the Professor and Mrs. Dering coming towards her 
across the grounds. West Africa was, airily speaking, 
just across the corner. 


49 


Chapter Three 

BY CARGO BOAT TO NIGERIA 

T wenty-one days on a tiny cargo boat to West 
Africa, without a single port of call, should have 
been dull. But to Sue May Innis it was just one long ex¬ 
citing moment. Almost before dawn she would awake 
and bounce from her bunk, to thrust a curly brown 
tousled head through the porthole and survey the skies 
for a weather forecast; then fling her dressing gown 
around her, thrust feet into slippers and race for the 
deserted deck. Anything might happen along while 
she wasted precious hours in sleep, anything from a 
mermaid to a whale. 

Actually she did see a whale once. And there was 
a land-bird that rested for half a day on the masthead; 
and schools of porpoises, always thrilling; the triumph 
of mastering ships’ bells and watches, lines of phos¬ 
phorescence around the bows at night; and sometimes, 
turtles and flying fish. What idiot had said that the 
sea was always the same! 

Mrs. Dering stayed below, even on the calmest day. 
“No use, my child, in courting disaster!” And with 
incredible quantities of fruit, novels and an enchanting 


50 


BY CARGO BOAT TO NIGERIA 


negligee she turned her cabin into a pleasant little 
boudoir. Professor Dering, bless his whiskers, had just 
about worn a track across the Atlantic, he’d crossed 
so often, but that hadn’t dampened his enthusiasm. 
Deck tennis, shuffleboard, quoits, were a pleasant part 
of Sue May’s secretarial duties. When she and her 
boss had exhausted one set of opponents they gaily took 
on another. In between times Sue May was kept busy 
with her lessons in Haussa. 

One passenger, Mrs. Fish, was of no use in any kind 
of game. But she had a game of her own. She would 
come up as Sue May leaned on the rail watching the 
bobbing line of the patent log or the porpoises play¬ 
ing; a prematurely stout person who reserved all her 
prowess for the dining table. 

“ ... So I said to the Ambassador,” she would 
burble in Sue May’s impatient ear, “My de . . . ar 
Charles . . . you know we always call him Charles 
in our family . . .! You really must make me known 
to the Governor. He might think I was just any¬ 
body!” 

Sue May was always trying to escape from what she 
called Mrs. Fish’s line. On the particular morning of 
the conversation just related she was glad when the 
ship’s bell indicated ten o’clock. “That’s my factory 
whistle,” Sue May tried not to sound too relieved. “I 
must go and punch the time clock.” 

When she arrived, with portable Corona and an arm¬ 
ful of papers, at the door of the dining saloon the Pro- 


5 1 


SUNHELMET SUE 


fessor was already seated at a green baize-covered table. 
The Captain had allowed them this room as refuge and 
workplace between meals. 

“Got hooked by the Fish this morning again,” an¬ 
nounced Sue May. “In the ten minutes before I could 
break away she dragged in a Rumanian Count, a Scotch 
laird, and of course our old friend, Charles the Am¬ 
bassador. West Africa, I gather, is to be handed to her 
on a flower-decked platter.” She whirred a fresh page 
into the typewriter. “Now what do we work on this 
morning?” 

“I’m afraid it’s Edible Grains again, a bit hard, so 
soon after breakfast.” 

This monograph on the Primitive Processing of 
Edible Grains was a hobby of Professor Dering’s. As 
an expert on primitive African languages his interest 
had swung to the lives and the customs of the people 
themselves, to anthropology in general. Sue May, 
would-be archaeologist, future delver into the unwrit¬ 
ten past, felt that a knowledge of present-day primi¬ 
tive life would help her to understand the primitive 
life of far-off ages; this made her perhaps more of a 
student than a paid secretary and the Professor wel¬ 
comed questions, heard her daily Haussa lesson, ex¬ 
plained as much as he could, but also set her a higher 
standard of endeavor than would have been required of 
her as a temporary secretary and typist. 

Immediately Sue May settled down to transcribing 
some of yesterday’s notes. She was quick at her seek- 


5 2 


BY CARGO BOAT TO NIGERIA 

it-and-sock-it typing method, she’d taken great trouble 
over that, and neat and accurate. 

“I wonder,” said the Professor suddenly, looking 
up from the galley proofs in his hand, “whether you’d 
mind reverting to longhand, Susan. Your handwriting 
is very pleasant and legible.” 

“Is it the noise?” asked Sue May. “If that bothers 
you I’ll put some sort of pad under the machine.” 

“No, not the noise.” The Professor removed his 
spectacles and smiled disarmingly. “Not the noise, 
but—how shall I put it?” No scientist such as Sue 
May wished to be, he submitted, could afford to be 
tempted by immediate results. For instance in the ar¬ 
chaeological line that would mean mere “treasure dig¬ 
ging” as opposed to the slow, minutely painstaking 
labor of excavation. 

Sue May tugged at the curl over her left ear and 
wondered how this applied to her typing. She knew 
that she was accurate and careful. 

“We will concede that your present typing meets 
with the needs of the present,” the Professor enlight¬ 
ened her. “But with a wise eye to the future would it 
not be better to master the touch system ? Anyone can 
type with one or two fingers, just as anyone can plunge 
with clumsy pick and shovel into an ancient burial 
barrow. In both cases it’s the way, the exact method 
that matters. And the archaeologist has a special re¬ 
sponsibility, since his job is such a destructive one.” 

Sue May was shocked. Surely people couldn’t be 


53 


SUNHELMET SUE 


called ‘destructive’ who brought to light the unwritten 
history of the past, who had built up from the smallest 
traces the intimate daily life of a thousand, of ten thou¬ 
sand years ago, adding so greatly to our wealth of 
knowledge. To rebuild forgotten palaces out of un¬ 
wanted potsherds, was surely constructive if anything 
was! 

The Professor, reading her thoughts, smiled. “ ‘De¬ 
structive’ was the word I used. Once a place has been 
dug up, whether it is a barrow or a city, it has been 
exposed to the light, its message has been read once 
and for all. Its soil has been disturbed and can never 
be replaced as it was. Each site is like a book which 
may be destroyed as it is translated and it must re¬ 
main then, a final monument to the clumsiness or deli¬ 
cacy of the first man who excavated it.” 

Sue May nodded. Professor Dering was right, of 
course. Archaeology wasn’t just the digging up of 
buried treasure; it was doing skilled detective work on 
ancient material, making each discovered article yield 
up all that it had to say. From the manner in which 
it was found, how it lay, where it lay in regard to other 
objects, how it happened to be there, the archaeologist 
could deduce many things. A broken bit of ugly brown 
pottery might be a far more exciting clue to the en¬ 
tire origin of an ancient people than the golden hoard 
of some pirate chief. And how deep it lay, in what 
kind of soil, was usually far more important than the 
thing itself. That was what he meant when he talked 


54 


BY CARGO BOAT TO NIGERIA 

about disturbing the soil. But, writing laboriously by 
hand throughout the remainder of the morning, she 
still didn’t see how archaeology applied to her typing. 

A brazen clamor sounded along the decks and came 
to a climax in the corridor; a steward entered to stow 
away the gong and lay the long table for the dozen 
passengers. Half an hour to lunchtime. The Profes¬ 
sor, briefcase under arm, disappeared through the door 
and Sue May shuffled her papers together. 

Outside the dining-room an officer was pinning to 
the notice board the usual radio news of the day. This 
was never of great interest, and she would have hur¬ 
ried by, down the companionway to her cabin, if Mrs. 
Fish, peering at the typewritten pages, hadn’t turned 
to her and beamed. 

“Isn’t this exciting?” She pointed with a pudgy 
finger. 

Sue May bent closer and read: “Sioux Forks . . . 
[why that was quite near home] . . . Today two 
young farmers digging in a pasture discovered a pot¬ 
tery jar with a quantity of gold coins and some jade. 
Beside it was a skeleton and the evidences of an ancient 
stone building.” Jade . . . jade? What was jade do¬ 
ing, so far north of Central America where it had once 
been held almost in reverence as the most precious of 
stones. And the two farmers, how much had they 
destroyed in uncovering this gold, as though they were 
merely digging at the end of the rainbow? 

“Buried treasure!” gushed Mrs. Fish. “You know 


55 


SUNHELMET SUE 


that happened right in my home town once too. Just 
in our back-yard. It used to be an Indian burying 
ground, and we found a lot of turquoise beads and some 
blonde hair.” 

Jolted momentarily out of her indignation Sue May 
asked “Blonde hair? How awfully interesting! Did 
you get an expert in to examine the place?” 

“Oh no, there wasn’t anything else there, we dug all 
round to see. Of course we burned the hair, the per¬ 
son might have died of most anything. But my sister 
wears the beads,—and they are lovely.” 

Sue May daren’t say what she felt about it. She 
turned and whirled down to her cabin. Just plain 
greed, it had been, for the silly string of turquoise 
beads . . . and was it ignorance that couldn’t see what 
it had destroyed? Both probably. People, quite edu¬ 
cated people too, grabbed at a trinket and destroyed 
forever all the trinket implied. One didn’t find blonde 
hair in an old, old Indian grave and just forget about 
it. And as for that Sioux Forks note, why that simply 
screamed aloud for an explanation. 

With a shaking hand she ran a comb through her 
bobbed curls, dabbed powder on her nose and blindly 
glared at the reflection in the dim little cabin mirror. 
Why had there been an Indian skeleton beside that 
jade? And why the remains of a stone building? 
Indians hadn’t built in stone, not North American 
Indians, and . . . the question marks spluttered an¬ 
grily through her brain. 


5 6 


BY CARGO BOAT TO NIGERIA 

But Mrs. Fish was irrepressible. Even at the lunch 
table. . . . “So you’re going all the way to Africa to 
dig for buried treasure, Professor Dering? How ex¬ 
citing!” She smiled coyly and the long gold chain 
about her neck clanked against her plate. 

“No,” said the Professor, and took a spoonful of soup. 

“Oh, but I’m sure it must be. Quite too fascinating!” 

“But you see,” Professor Dering paused with the 
spoon halfway to his mouth. “I’m not going to Ni¬ 
geria to dig buried treasure.” 

“But Africa was what I heard . . .” Mrs. Fish seemed 
able to talk and eat at the same time. “The Canaries 
then ? How interesting. Now I knew the name of . . . 
let me see, . . . would he be our consul there?” 

“I can’t say,” said Professor Dering wearily, and cast 
an appealing glance towards his secretary across the 
table. 

Mrs. Fish caught the glance. “And your sweet little 
secretary will be in Teneriffe too?” 

“No,” said Sue May, wickedly still further snarling 
the tangle. “I’m going on to Africa you see.” She won¬ 
dered how she finished her soup without choking on 
her inward giggle. 

“I’m sure if I could only remember it there was 
something very interesting I’ve read about the Ca¬ 
naries.” 

“They sing,” murmured Sue May into her napkin. 

“ . . . A big book you know, with, let me see, a red 
cover.” Her hands described its approximate size that 


57 


SUNHELMET SUE 


the Professor might have no difficulty in recognizing 
it. “Or, no, was that the one about Atlantis? No, 
yes . . . No, let me see. Surely they were the same 
book?” 

Sue May was well along in the next course, she 
could afford to draw Mrs. Fish’s fire now while the 
Professor, a slow eater, caught up with his meal. 

“But Atlantis was supposed to be a lost continent. 
The Canaries aren’t exactly lost, you know.” 

The woman ignored Sue May. “Perhaps the dear 
Professor will tell us his theory of that fascinating 
subject.” 

Hastily Professor Dering disclaimed authority. 
“You’re asking a carpenter about a mason’s job. You 
should consult an archaeologist—my learned col¬ 
league.” With a grin of mischief he bowed his head 
towards his secretary. 

Well, she’d brought it on herself. Sue May drew 
a deep breath and in a very passable imitation of the 
Professor’s platform manner, took the plunge. Of 
course she’d read about Atlantis, what would-be ar- 
chaelogist hadn’t thrilled to that story, and as she grew 
older had been greatly disappointed to discover that 
no huge inhabited continent had ever actually sunk 
beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. “But the 
day has passed,” she rounded up her slight fund of 
information, “when the pseudo-scientist could involve 
himself in an elaborate and imaginative cocoon. Guess 
work as to where and what Atlantis is has been halted 


BY CARGO BOAT TO NIGERIA 

by the geographer who assures us that Atlantis is not, 
and never was.” 

O . . . o, that was a good sentence. She caught the 
Professor’s eye, which nearly proved fatal to her gravity, 
recovered, and went on. “No inhabited continent has 
ever existed between Europe and America. As for 
Lemuria and Mu . . . the Pacific counterpart of At¬ 
lantis . . .” Airily she dismissed those before going 
into further detail of the legend, reported by a Greek 
philosopher, taking, as it were, Sabbatical leave in 
Thebes, of ancient Egypt. 

Mrs. Fish had laid down her fork and was gazing 
at her in open amazement. There were conspiratorial 
signs from the Professor that she should continue. 

“Though Atlantis never existed, no legend such 
as this could be lightly ignored. Was the tradition,” 
she asked of the dining-room, “a far off echo of that 
wide flung story of the flood?” Sue May left the 
answer to her audience. “Or again the legend as 
handed down would fit an Egyptian’s half-forgotten 
memory of the fall of that great sea-empire based on 
Crete . . . the faintest tremor of a far-off crash.” On 
which note, Sue May thought it would be wise to 
close—she couldn’t hope to better it and anyway the 
Professor had choked as though on a bone. 

“Oh,” Mrs. Fish gulped, “oh, I had no idea it was 
so interesting.” 

“Few people,” said Sue May, choking in turn, 
“ha . . . have!” 


59 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Lunch had been fun; the Professor had a happy 
knack of turning even that deadly woman into an 
amusing pastime. But on deck again Sue May re¬ 
lapsed into a former mood. Here, alone except for 
the rise and dip of the bluff-bowed old freighter and 
the steady sound of the breaking waves, Sue May 
hauled a deck chair into a sheltered corner, cocooned 
herself in a steamer rug and opened her grammar to 
the Haussa lesson for the day. But between her eyes 
and the page swam irrepressible remnants of the morn¬ 
ing’s conversations. “An archaelogist has a special 
responsibility . . . Sioux Forks . . . two youths dig up 
buried jade . . . golden hair in an Indian grave. . . .” 
She closed her eyes and concentrated on the elaborate 
Oriental Haussa greeting, so difficult to memorize. A 
moment later she heard the Professor’s voice above her. 

“Shall I hear the lesson?” he asked. 

Sue May handed him the grammar. But she had 
something to talk over with him before she could 
think of anything else. “Yes, but did you see the radio 
news this noon? And that idiot Mrs. Fish told me 
about blonde hair found in an Indian burial ground—” 
She sputtered on for a full five minutes, ending with 
“My brother Karl often drives over to Sioux Forks. 
I’ve half a mind to write and ask if he can’t do some¬ 
thing about it . . . destroying a good bit of archaeo¬ 
logical evidence like that. Gosh, I wish I’d been there.” 
She dabbed at the angry tears in her eyes. 

Professor Dering was more lenient in his judgment. 


60 


BY CARGO BOAT TO NIGERIA 

Even a trained archaeologist is a vandal in the eyes of 
his successors, he told her. “People would give a for¬ 
tune to undo the work of Schliemann, for instance, 
who discovered the site of ancient Troy. Yet Schlie¬ 
mann was among the leading prehistorians of his day. 
And you should read Flinders Petrie’s strictures on 
the work of his brother excavators in Egypt. Don’t be 
too harsh on the amateurs who make these chance and 
dramatic discoveries,” he ended. “They often lead the 
way to real scientific investigation of hitherto unknown 
sites.” 

“But modern scientific digging—” Sue Mary started 
to protest. 

“—Will be condemned, even within our lifetime, as 
obsolete and unscientific. It’s difficult, I know, to 
imagine it. But supposing, in a few years, invention 
should place at your disposal something like a stereo¬ 
scopic X-ray camera, focusing sharply to within an 
inch, so that without disturbing a spoonful of earth 
you could record the outlines of each object below the 
surface, ... an inch, two inches down and so on for 
the depth of many feet.” 

Eyes gleaming, Sue May sat bolt upright in her chair. 
“Zowie!” 

“It would make our present dig-and-damage methods 
a bit out of date, wouldn’t it? 

“And in the meantime, we’re all vandals, in the 
sight of the years to come.” He leafed through the 
grammar. “All you can aim at in any science, whether 


61 


SUNHELMET SUE 


your archaeology or my anthropology, is to do the very 
best in every detail, since you cannot know what may 
or may not be important. 

And after hearing her lesson, the Professor drifted 
off in his usual vague, long-legged manner. 

With the departure of the Professor, Sue May’s mood 
swung back. She should be studying Haussa but she 
reconsidered again that radio news note. She’d let him 
half persuade her to leave the business alone, but if 
she wrote home to Karl, perhaps, since he knew how 
keenly she felt about this digging business, he’d be able 
to do something about it; see one of the local mu¬ 
seums, get them to send a man down to Sioux Forks 
and investigate whatever was there. Somehow for the 
moment Sue May felt that she was the only possible 
person who could have recognized the peculiar signif¬ 
icance of that strange combination; that it might even 
be an outpost of a wandering group of Mayas in the 
north before the slow Indian trek to Central America. 

She’d do it now. She unwound herself from her 
steamer rug and scurried along the deck. Once in her 
cabin with her open typewriter on her knee she started 
to compose her letter. 

“Karl dear ” swiftly she picked out the letters with 
two fingers of her right, one of her left hand. Then 
she stiffened and sat back. 

“We’re all vandals,” came the memory of the Pro¬ 
fessor’s voice, “. . . in the sight of the years to come. 
All you can aim at in any science, archaeology or my 


62 


BY CARGO BOAT TO NIGERIA 

anthropology, is to do the very best in every little de¬ 
tail, since you cannot know what may, or may not be 
important.” 

One couldn’t know of course. Sue May pushed away 
her machine and turned to look out of the porthole. 

To play safe, one would have to extend that idea to 
one’s whole life. Aim at the highest possible and only 
that . . . even in . . . perish the thought . . . learn¬ 
ing to type by the touch system! 


6 ? 


7t 



Chapter Four 

THE SUNHELMET BECOMES A FIXTURE 

T eneriffe, in the Canary Islands, name of ro¬ 
mance and magic, and Sue May’s first sight of land 
other than America. Bobbing boats on the blue, blue 
water round the blunt nose of the anchored freighter, 
like terriers about a mastiff; and dark-skinned Portu¬ 
guese selling laces and small ebony elephants, native 
baskets, French perfumes and China shawls. Sue May’s 
first sight of palm trees, her first sniff of hot spicy winds 
from the plum-purple hills. That too was the day she 
first wore her sunhelmet, that contraption of cork and 
linen with which for the past sixty years the white man 
has protected his ridiculously thin skull against the sear- 

64 


THE SUNHELMET BECOMES A FIXTURE 

ing rays of a tropic sun. Sue May wore hers with a long 
green veil fluttering down her back, and the brim 
cocked jauntily over one eyebrow. 

And eyeing herself in the cabin mirror, she mur¬ 
mured, “Not too bad, my dear. And it just better not 
be, because they tell me it’s all the hat I’ll wear till 
I pass this way on the trip home.” 

Gambia, several days later, was disappointing. Just 
low mud flats. Freetown in Sierra Leone really seemed 
tropical, really Africa. Tier after tier of noble moun¬ 
tains, crowned with heat haze, rising steeply from the 
milk warm sea; hot red earth, lush vegetation and again 
that smell of spices and jungle. Even, one was sure, the 
far-off sound of drumming such as one dreamed was 
Africa. Maddening not to have time to go ashore. 
Monrovia, like Gambia, was flat. Here a single small 
boat rowed out to bring aboard some cargo, but the 
boat sported a tattered American flag at the stern, 
fluttering from a newly peeled stick. But Lagos, 
their own port, was now only four days distant. 

And when they slowly steamed down the long 
lagoon between waving palms and red-roofed Gov¬ 
ernment bungalows small as toys, Lagos was sheer 
enchantment. One gasped and looked and gasped 
again. The strange red of earth roads slashing like a 
wound through lush green foliage. See, that tall man 
in the spotless turban and long white embroidered 
robe. Look, there’s a Negro mammy who might have 
come from home, bandanna and all, and with the 

65 


SUNHELMET SUE 


same flash of white teeth. Look at the native police¬ 
man, in spotless helmet and dark blue uniform and 
bare feet. Sue May’s head was in a whirl. And to think 
that she would have three, four months of this country, 
of this richness and color and sunlight! She found 
even the heat exhilarating, though Mrs. Dering looked 
white and drawn and the Professor said he’d be glad 
when they got farther north again. 

Once off the boat there was a short call to be made 
at Government House, to write their names in the call¬ 
ing book. Their luggage was sent off to the station 
resthouse ... for Lagos had no hotel nor was there 
one in the whole country of Nigeria, and tonight they 
would be off on the “Rich Mixed.” 

Sue May chuckled at the name. It was just another 
of those half affectionate labels which the English pin 
on things; in this case the tri-weekly express, carrying 
first class for whites and third for natives, as opposed 
to the daily train that took only natives, or the bi¬ 
monthly that carried upcountry passengers from the 
big English steamers. Rich Mixed ... it was full of 
flavor, like this town of Lagos. 

The formalities over, and lunch out of the way, she 
escaped back into the town in search of more mixtures, 
more richness, and someone on whom to try her partly 
acquired Haussa. It was an up-country tongue, belong¬ 
ing to the Mohammedan half-Arabic conquerors of 
the north. But the Haussas were traders everywhere, 
any man with a long full riga and big turban would 


66 


THE SUNHELMET BECOMES A FIXTURE 

speak the tongue and Sue May felt an urgent desire to 
know that this new language wasn’t just so many words 
and phrases, like Latin, in a book; that the pleasant 
sibilant speech over which she had toiled so long would 
really work when she spoke it. 

Up and down the narrow, noisy, crowded streets she 
wandered. The tropical sun glared down, dust rose 
in clouds, and the ping of bicycle bells, the honk of 
motor horns began to jangle in her ears. The white 
sunhelmet. . . . Sue May lifted it to let the hot air pass 
beneath. Whew! It felt like a red hot saucepan over 
her ears. Close to teatime now, and an emptiness be¬ 
neath her belt. How far back to the station resthouse ? 
And how did one get there? 

On the corner, languidly directing traffic lounged 
a smart young native in white helmet, dark blue uni¬ 
form and spiral puttees above bare brown feet. Well, 
that was easy, one could recognize a traffic cop in any 
climate. Crossing to his side Sue May stammered in 
Haussa. 

“Ina . . that meant “where.” . . . “Ina ba\in 
jirigi . . . ” Where is the railway station? 

Indifferent spaniel brown eyes regarded her vaguely. 
“No savvy, m’a,” was his reply. 

Before she could translate herself back into her own 
language a sonorous voice behind her gave greeting. 
“Salaam Alaikum. Peace be upon you.” 

Almost as she thought of it the response was on Sue 
May’s tongue. “Alaikum es salaam. Upon you be the 

67 


SUNHELMET SUE 


peace!” She’d actually remembered it and it was un 
derstood! A real live native, complete in gown and 
turban and sandals, bowing low, one hand to ground 
in the stately fashion of the northern provinces. Now 
what did one do next? 

A smile wrinkled the purple brown skin beneath the 
spotless, intricate turban. A string of words, incredi¬ 
bly rapid, and he gestured behind him with one slim 
hand whose palm was stained with henna. Grasping 
at the last word of the sentence she held on till she 
could slow it down and recognize “chinihj.” Why, that 
meant “trade.” This man was really one of those trav¬ 
eling traders from the north. But they couldn’t con¬ 
tinue to chat here in the middle of the road. 

In the shadow of one of the little match-box stores, 
against a background of Standard Oil tins, fluttering 
bits of Manchester trade cloth, cheap white garments 
on a line, machine-made embroidery from Japan, and 
curious peering dusky faces, the trader prepared to 
spread his wares. A small boy, clad in a single shirt, 
discard of some whiteman’s wardrobe, deposited his 
head-burden on the sidewalk and untied it. Sue May 
bent forward and scarcely suppressed a gurgle of de¬ 
light. No trade goods here, these were the real thing. 

Long strips of webbing-like cloth of native weave; 
those must have been woven on a very narrow loom. 
Knives, their blades elaborately chased, in colorful em¬ 
broidered red goatskin scabbards. Small quaint ani¬ 
mals, antelopes made of parchment with the head re- 


65 


THE SUNHELMET BECOMES A FIXTURE 

movable to make a stopper. She’d like one of those. 

“How . . . how much?” asked Sue May in Haussa. 

“Sulai biyu.” The trader held up two fingers. 

Two shillings ? Not bad. But one must bargain with 
these people, they expected it. Then she caught sight 
of the little brass figure, some sort of long legged 
animal resembling one of those many bat-eared pi- 
dogs that roamed the Lagos streets. But a wriggly horn 
rose from the center of the creature’s forehead. Care¬ 
ful not to reveal her eagerness she picked it up, laid 
it down with apparent indifference. “What ... ?” 
she asked in Haussa. 

A string of words, then in faltering English. “Rhino, 
Baturia . . . Whitewoman.” 

A rhinoceros? Surely not. But then there weren’t 
any rhinos in this part of Africa, so undoubtedly this 
was the natives’ conception of that almost fabulous 
beast. Whereupon Sue May began to bargain. 

She got it at last, in exchange for three brass West 
Coast shillings, and proudly tucked it away in her 
handbag; an authentic piece of native work from the 
northern provinces. A good archaeologist must begin 
early to spot the genuine and the imitation. And here, 
right away, she had been able to, bargaining for it 
moreover in the trader’s own tongue! 

“Sai wata rana. . . . Until another sun.” She bade 
goodbye. 

The trader, smiling widely, placed hand to ground 
in half kneeling acknowledgment. “Su-nana Garuba 

69 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Jos,” and waved a graceful hand northwards. One 
trader named Garuba from Jos in the north, in case 
she should wish him again. 

It wasn’t till she was a block away that she realized 
she had forgotten to ask the way to the station rest- 



house. But dropping into English now, because she 
had given her Haussa a good airing, she found at least 
one native out of five who could understand her. And 
the long walk back was sped by the consciousness of 
an afternoon well spent. Even the little brass animal 
heavily weighing down the hot leather handbag against 
her arm was no burden at all, she felt so content with 
her bargain. She took it out again just as she turned 


70 







THE SUNHELMET BECOMES A FIXTURE 

into the resthouse compound, turning it over in gloat¬ 
ing pleasure. 

Beneath the little beast’s stomach was a fine line of 
some sort, a roughness perhaps in the making. Peering 
closer Sue May could make out very tiny letters, and 
in English, they read quite plainly, now that she came 
to examine them, “Made in Birmingham!” 

“Weill” said Sue May, stopping short in her tracks. 
“Well of all the . . . silly fools. You did get stung 
that time, didn’t you?” The original might have been 
Haussa, but this was a machine made copy, cast in 
England. 

How hot it was, beastly hot. And how tired she 
was, how dry her mouth, and how heavy, now, the 
leather bag. And what a cocksure little idiot she had 
been to think that she could tell the fake from the real. 
Smug little know-alls never learned anything, never 
could become good archaeologists. Her hand made a 
gesture to hurl the brazen insult into the bushes beside 
the verandah steps. Then Sue May grinned, reluc¬ 
tantly, began to laugh. At least, thank Heaven, she 
could take a joke on herself. And what’s more she 
would turn the joke to good account. She’d keep the 
rhino as a mascot, a talisman, a Dreadful Warning! 
She ran lightly up the verandah steps. 


7 1 


Chapter Five 


TO YAR? 


M rs. dering, from her perch on a pile of tropical 
tin trunks in Sue May’s bedroom waved a pretty 
pink tipped hand towards the frocks spread out on 
chair, bed and boxes. “I’d suggest, Sue darling, some¬ 
thing ceremonious and dignified, without of course 
being actually grandmotherly! Since this is the Gover¬ 
nor’s own dinner it wouldn’t do to make him feel too 
young and callow!” 

Sue May turned, starry eyed and chuckling, from 
the mirror where she was brushing her curls; this 
steaming moisture kinked her locks into little watch- 
springs. She waved a brush towards a May-green or¬ 
gandie whose long full skirt and big puffed sleeves were 
thick with tiny embroidered daisies; it had been too 
elaborate to unpack for the cargo boat and now it 
seemed hopelessly wrinkled. 

“We can give it to the resthouse steward boy,” was 
Mrs. Dering’s suggestion. “There’s always a cookfire 
somewhere and he can heat an iron.” 

The invitation, an engraved card with the Nigerian 
crest at the top and their names filled in, had been at 
the railway resthouse on Sue May’s return from sight- 


7 2 


TO YAR? 


seeing. This evening’s dinner was important. Of 
course, it was nice of the Governor to have asked them, 
but she gathered this wasn’t just a social invitation; he 
would want to meet them, talk over the trip into the 
interior and find out whether their small party could be 
trusted to look out for itself and not offend the natives. 
She knew what the Professor had said; that if visitors 
to Nigeria should prove to be lacking in tact, resource¬ 
fulness or equipment they would, without realizing it, 
be allowed no facilities for leaving the usual beaten 
track, would never be allowed away from the watch¬ 
ful eye of the Government. In a country where there 
is no hotel, no transport except by Government rail¬ 
way, one has to use the Administration for everything 
from resthouse to carriers. 

The Derings of course had been out before, though 
not under this particular Governor. Actually it was 
Sue May who would be under scrutiny, and though no 
one had told her she was keenly aware of the terrific 
responsibility. At this dinner, she resolved, she’d be as 
inconspicuous as a salt cellar; good and quiet and . . . 
demure. As she did her hair before the mirror she 
tried on her new demure expression till Mrs. Dering 
asked if the sun had given her a headache. 

She had time for further practice as the car drove 
them to Government House. Announced by the butler, 
introduced by two A.D.C.’s, received by the Governor 
and Lady Goodyear. Sue May got through it bravely, 
though she felt as though she’d been presented at 


73 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Buckingham Palace. Then she had a free moment and 
could look around and wonder what next. And there 
. . . good Heavens! was Mrs. Fish. Majestic, stately 
as a square-rigger under full sail; diamonds, lorgnette, 
white satin and all. 

“My dear!” The woman moved towards her. “I 
hadn’t realized that you too had letters of introduction 
to our dear Governor.” 

“We hadn’t!” Sue May felt that demon imp rising 
again. “But there’s no hotel here you see, so they asked 
us just to drop in for a meal.” Oh dear, this was no 
way to begin an evening! How could she be demure 
if the Fish was to be at the same table. 

Not only at the same table, but it proved, almost in 
the seat opposite. For, to her gratification the Profes¬ 
sor and Mrs. Dering were guests of honor, partners to 
host and hostess at distant ends of the long room. 
That left Sue May stranded in a strange country some¬ 
where near the middle of the glittering, crystal-decked 
board. Her partner was a young Assistant District 
Officer—known as an A.D.O.—and at first she found 
the conversation a little difficult. 

She’d used up “horses” about which subject she knew 
nothing, was completely lost on cricket even when it 
came to comparison with baseball. Then somehow the 
talk swung to flying; some army planes, it seemed, 
were coming out from Egypt this season. 

“I want to get my pilot’s license next leave,” con- 
finded the A.D.O. “Have you flown?” 


74 


TO YAR? 


Had she piloted? No, Sue May admitted regret¬ 
fully. Her brother Karl always took her up. “But I’ve 
done a lot of parachute jumping.” 

“By Jove, have you?” His face split in a grin of sur¬ 
prised admiration. “How did that happen, a little 
thing like you? I’d be scared stiff. What’s it feel like?” 

“It’s grand, really. Like taking a long smooth dive 
through clear water.” And she forgot her awkward¬ 
ness, her difficulty in understanding her neighbor’s 
strong Oxfordisms and plunged into talk of the one 
thing she knew best and loved next to archaeology. 
Funny though, she’d never have expected that three 
years as a demonstrator for Dad’s C 37 parachute would 
prove to be a social asset at a Governor’s dinner in 
West Africa! Airplanes and flying carried her easily 
through the remainder of the long function, up to the 
time when the ladies rose and left the men to their 
cigars and port. 

It had certainly been impressive. Sue May hadn’t 
expected this almost royal display of silver and crystal, 
shining white linen, the servants in spotless white with 
red tasseled fezzes and cummerbund sashes. Certainly 
not what you’d picture as West Africa. In the long 
drawing room she looked for an inconspicuous corner 
and sat down to collect her impressions of the evening. 
Mrs. Dering was talking ‘Paris’ to Lady Goodyear. 
Oh, here was the Fish again! 

“How the dear Professor has been hiding his light 
under a bushel!” she complained coyly subsiding into 


75 


SUNHELMET SUE 


the next chair. “We had no idea on shipboard that 
he was so important. And Mrs. Dering—but of course 
we scarcely saw her, did we?” 

This sudden enthusiasm for the Derings, thought 
Sue May, was because they were guests of honor, and 
she slipped her hands behind her. Surely the woman 
wasn’t going to ask her for a letter of introduction . . . 
to some native Emir perhaps! 

“I was so lucky when I called and presented my 
credentials this afternoon,” Mrs. Fish’s eyeglasses glit¬ 
tered delightedly. “So lucky, the Governor has prom¬ 
ised me that I may penetrate right into the interior, 
right up to Railhead. That’s nearly a thousand miles 
you know.” 

Sue May bet herself that that meant Kano. And she 
knew that Kano had electric lights and ice, and a mu¬ 
nicipal water supply. Not very exciting, why you 
could get those comfortable adventures without leav¬ 
ing the States. She felt a moment of panic; what use 
would Kano be to Professor Dering, if that should 
prove to be as far as he was allowed to go? 

The men entered from the dining-room, and there 
was a buzz of talk, as people shifted chairs, formed 
new groups. 

“We struggled for years before we could get an¬ 
thropology recognized as an essential of Government 
Administration,” the Governor was saying earnestly 
to Professor Dering. “It may take further years before 
we can get a backing for archaeology. Nowhere in 

76 


TO YAR? 


Europe is it admitted that West Africa can possess a 
prehistory . . 

Sue May pricked up her ears. This was her own 
stuff. 

“• • . like Topsy, we ‘just growed!’ I understand, 
Miss Innis, that you’re an archaeologist?” 

“Oh no,” she began. Fortunately Mrs. Fish had been 
drawn away in conversation with Mrs. Dering and 
Lady Goodyear. 

“But may one ask,” the Governor took the seat be¬ 
side her, “just why you have apprenticed yourself to an 
anthropologist?” 

That was easy. Anthropology, Sue May explained, 
helped one to understand archaeology. If one had 
never cooked with anything but electricity and gas, 
how could one expect to know or to recognize those 
firestones used in an earlier civilization to heat water 
in a calabash? You had to see what people were doing 
now, how primitive people lived in the present, to 
know the uses of the things they made in the past, 
didn’t you? And if you bought your flour all ground 
and blended in a patent container, with no closer con¬ 
tact than the corner grocery, how could you know 
about flails, winnows, all the varieties of grindstone, 
pestle and mortar which you must learn to recognize 
in the reconstruction of the life of an ancient 
people ? 

“Obviously,” concluded Sue May, forgetting to be 
inconspicuous, “if you want to interpret the primitive 


77 


SUNHELMET SUE 


life of the past, it won’t do any harm to have a pretty 
sound understanding of present-day primitive life.” 

The Governor smiled and nodded approval. “But,” 
he cautioned her, “you can’t expect a Tutankhamun’s 
Tomb in Nigeria. We’ve too much damp and heat 
here for anything to last long.” 

“It isn’t just the rich and striking things that really 
matter,” Sue May wanted to make her position clear. 
“Surely there will be something, caves to be explored, 
early camp sites, burial grounds to be recorded and 
mapped and studied? After all, Zimbabwe in East 
Africa was almost unknown till recently.” 

Her eagerness stirred the Governor’s interest. There 
were, he told her cautiously, a few old hut circles, 
mainly on the plateau where the Derings were going, 
which might be very ancient. Or might not. There 
were crude stone bridges at Bokkos, some burials in 
giant pots up Bornu way, near Lake Chad— 
Frantically Sue May tried to jot these down in her 
mind. It was such an opportunity, probably nowhere 
else would she find someone so full of interest and 
information. The Governor paused as though about 
to reveal a secret of his own: “There is also a place 
called Yar, concerning which I have a little theory: 
that it was the dispersion point from which a series 
of our present tribes derive their origin. Whether up 
to that point there was one tribe or a confederacy of 
tribes we have as yet no data. And as to the importance 
of Yar, I may say that no one agrees with me.” 

7 S 


TO YAR? 


“Yar?” Sue May pondered on the name. “Where is 
it? What is it? A town? Is it still inhabited?” 

“It’s a freak hill, up east of the Plateau where you’ll 
be going. You can see it from the hills on a clear day, 
three huge rounded rocks of utterly smooth granite 
rather like newly poured pancakes, but surrounded by 
miles of grey looking thorn trees which would be ex¬ 
ceedingly difficult to penetrate. It’s uninhabited, so 
there’s never been a reason for an official visit.” 

Yar. Three rocks like pancakes. Thorn trees. 

“And,” he was saying, “the ’Ngas tribe still invoke it 
in their seeding. ‘We sow in thy honor, Yar!’ But 
whether you make a striking discovery or not, Miss 
Innis, let me know how you get on, won’t you?” 

Among the small crowd of white people awaiting 
the midnight “Rich Mixed” beneath the glaring, in- 
sect-haunted station lights, Sue May could recognize 
none of the steamer passengers. There were hundreds 
of natives further down the platform; one, in volumi¬ 
nous robes and big turban seemed familiar. Might it 
be that trader, whatisname, who’d sold her the little 
rhino? She couldn’t be sure, and though she’d been 
able to laugh at herself over that sale she didn’t really 
want to see him again. 

Professor Dering was shoving his way through the 
crowd with two boys and their hand baggage when 
Sue May found herself buttonholed by Mrs. Fish. 

“So sorry I can’t come with you. I’m getting Letters 


79 


SUNHELMET SUE 


of Introduction Upcountry.” In an awed whisper, 
“The dear Governor assures me I shall be Quite Safe. 
I’m going all the way to Zaria. And you, my dear?” 

You couldn’t, felt Sue May, bear to spoil things even 
for the Fish when she was so simple and enthusiastic. 

“Not going far.” Oh dear, what should she say? 
Why Zaria would be just the beginning of their trek. 
“Not as far as you, probably. Just to . . .” hastily a 
name slipped into her mind. “Just to a place called 
Yar.” And she hurried after the Derings. 

Now why on earth had she said “to Yar?” Yet the 
words sounded almost a prophecy. 


80 


Chapter Six 

THE SECRETARY HIRES A SECRETARY 

T he first class carriage, airless, ovenlike; shoutings 
in half a dozen languages; scuffling of bare brown 
feet; the night punctuated by the brilliant floodlights; 
hurrying dark forms with headloads, straining, sweat¬ 
ing, scurrying here and there; a crescendo both of heat 
and noise. Then the guard’s whistle, the sharp slam of 
carriage doors, a slow grinding of wheels as the train 
began to move. One panted in a cavern of hot sticki¬ 
ness, then the relief of movement and oh ... h, a 
breeze. The “Rich Mixed” gathered speed for its three 
and a half days towards the northern provinces. 

Sue May woke in the morning to lush green jungle 
crowding against the tracks, seeming to press against 
the very windows with their queer twilight blue glass. 
It looked cooler, but whenever the train paused at a 
small clearing or tiny wayside station one knew that 
already, so early in the morning, the tropical sun was 
potent, overpowering. Strange names; Oshogbo, Offa, 
Ibadan, Illorin; strange dark faces pressing at the open 
window, tiny sweet bananas, green oranges bought 
from a shy gazelle-eyed native girl for a penny a 
double handful. Then on again. 


81 


SUNHELMET SUE 


It was late afternoon before the jungle began to 
recede before bush country; flat, covered with tall, 
sparse dry grass and a scattering of stunted umbrella¬ 
shaped trees. Names too were changing, and the big, 
square mud-walled houses had altered to small circular 
groups with conical grass roofs. Sue May began to 
hear voices in a language she felt she almost under¬ 
stood, words and odd phrases which she came so near 
to catching. Haussas, these people, more and more at 
every station; long, thin-limbed men in tattered white 
garments to the ankle, wide flopping straw hats or 
intricate turbans, and the women in bandannas such 
as Aunt Jemima wears on the pancake box. 

It was a busy three days. Professor Dering’s mono¬ 
graph on Primitive Food Preparations had gone off 
from Lagos, but there was another book half finished 
with daily notes to clarify and file. Once Mrs. Dering 
stuck her head into the compartment where Sue May 
was literally sweating over a combination curse of this 
newly acquired touch system and the spelling of strange 
Haussa names. 

“How wise I was to marry the man,” she made a 
laughing face at her husband, “and not hire out as his 
secretary. Have a good time, darlings!” A moment 
later Sue May heard her in the corridor ordering iced 
drinks for them. 

At odd times Sue May scribbled on her letter home, 
or plunged her nose into the worn Haussa grammar, 


82 


THE SECRETARY HIRES A SECRETARY 

and at stations hung head and shoulders out of the 
window, shamelessly eavesdropping on any near-by 
native conversation. Even at night she could scarecly 
bear to waste hours in sleep. She would wake as the 
train paused long enough to unload some District Offi¬ 
cer, dismounting for his long trek to his lonely station 
in the bush; wake to the sound from the native town 
of far-off drumbeats which persisted like the rhythm 
of a pulse. A cheery English voice chatting at the 
carriage window, cries of carriers loading and moving 
off, hails and farewells. Then on again into the moon- 
drenched silence of the tropical night. 

So through the last day. Their next destination was 
Zaria. Sue May, forewarned by the map, had gathered 
up papers and repacked her personal belongings; there 
was no repacking to do for the Derings. Mrs. Dering 
had suddenly developed a quiet efficiency for which 
she seemed to feel she must apologize. “You see 
I’m accustomed to this sort of thing. It’s civilization 
that leaves me all of a dither, darling.” The Dering’s 
secretary didn’t understand, but she was grateful; just 
at the moment she had more than her share keeping 
up with new impressions. 

Grateful to be out and stretching her legs again. 
Grateful too, Sue May was, for the young official in 
white uniform who had been sent to meet them with 
carriers for their fifty odd boxes of food stuffs, supplies, 
instruments, camp kit and clothing. The Resident’s 

*5 


SUNHELMET SUE 


personal car carried them swiftly to the Resident’s rest- 
house—one hadn’t expected Africa would be so or¬ 
ganized and so simple. 

But it was disappointing to be so far out from the 
native town. 

“The white stations are always a mile or so away,” 
explained the young A.D.O. “It’s safer, on account of 
epidemics, town fires and things.” 

“I suppose.” Sue May peered from the car window 
into the warm scented dusk. Zaria—it sounded roman¬ 
tic, and she already knew that it was a city of a quarter 
million Mohammedan Haussas, with an Emir of its 
own and walls and gates, and a civilization, so it was 
said, half as old as Christianity. Would there be any 
work here for a striving young archaeologist? 

Not, she soon discovered, archaeology “the study of 
ancient peoples,” but perhaps a knowledge of present 
day folk was just as important. They were staying 
here only long enough to pick up houseboys, cook, and 
assistants. 

“Why not,” suggested the Professor to Mrs. Dering, 
“let Sue May try her apprentice hand at hiring the 
boys? It will force her to plunge in and use her new 
language, instead of continuing to shiver on the brink, 
grammar in hand.” 

The Dering’s secretary uttered an almost audible 
groan. First the touch system—and now this! She’d 
never run a household, she’d never hired a servant, 
she’d never spoken any language but her own. “If I 


THE SECRETARY HIRES A SECRETARY 

come home with a camel instead of a cook, well, it’ll 
be on your head, Mr. Dering.” 

“So be it.” The Professor’s eyes twinkled behind 
his glasses. “But I don’t think you will.” Funny how 
confident these people were in her when she had so 
little confidence in herself. 

So while the Derings made duty calls, for Zaria had 
a large white station, officials and army, Sue May began 
to discover to her surprise that she wouldn’t swap places 
with them for anything. Through the Resident’s chief 
steward boy she broadcast her help-wanted ad., and 
applicants began to trickle in from the near-by market. 

It wasn’t, she found, just a matter of what pay the 
Derings could offer and what qualifications the native 
boys could show. One smart looking lad in a long- 
tasseled tarboosh and immaculate cotton robe was on 
the point of being hired as houseboy when he began 
to shuffle from foot to foot and protest his unworthi¬ 
ness. 

Sue May was puzzled. His references showed that 
he’d been for ten years headboy to a recently retired 
Commissioner of Police, and before that second boy in 
a Resident’s household. 

“But—” she called forth her small stock of the native 
language, “the Master good . . . not big house . . . 
travel—” she waved an explanatory arm. 

That, it appeared, was just the snag. “I savvy Zaria 
proper,” in English as halting as her Haussa. “And all 
Master who live there. I no be fit go for bush,” which 


*5 


SUNHELMET SUE 


either contained for him unknown terrors or a com¬ 
plete lack of those civilized comforts to which he was 
accustomed. Apologetically he withdrew from the 
picture. 

Another boy, highly recommended as knowing bush 
life, was sent for but never arrived. He was sick. He 
was away. He was this, that and the other, till she 
found he had worked only in bachelor households and 
was scared of working for a woman. 

Well, that was the history of the next few days. Sue 
May was getting a lot of practice with her Haussa, but 
the Derings were no nearer acquiring a household, and 
nobody knew better than their secretary how pressed 
they were for time. Darned decent of them she 
thought, not to utter a word of criticism, nor even, 
unless she asked for it, any suggestions. Somehow, she 
worried, there must be a good way round this problem. 
She’d already interviewed boys who had been in prison, 
boys who were dirty, boys from down-country who 
spoke neither Haussa nor English, boys who were 
“boys” no longer, too superannuated for the rough 
bush life, and others who had no experience of white 
people at all. There was no time to teach a green boy, 
accustomed to the simplicity of a straw mat and a 
calabash feeding bowl, all the elaborations of the white 
household, from table silver to camp beds, boiled water, 
daily quinine and mosquito boots. As much as Sue 
May could do to remember it all herself. 

Almost in despair, almost ready to throw herself on 


86 


THE SECRETARY HIRES A SECRETARY 

the kindness of the Professor and ask for his aid, she 
started, one blazing morning, to walk to the native 
market, down the long red laterite road between frangi- 
panni trees, and the flamboyants, red as flames. Just 
beyond the railroad were the canteens, British trading 
stores, the last outpost for shopping before one “went 
to bush”; tinned meat; tinned milk; bolts of print 
cloth; petrol; kerosene; matches. For one shilling she 
bought a tin of chocolate biscuits—at home it would 
have been called a “box of cookies,” and nibbling these 
she pushed on towards the town walls. So much to 
see, all so new and colorful. 

The town wall, almost as thick as it was high, still 
with a few crenelations—Sue May half closed her eyes 
to the glare and considered. Oh yes, those would be 
to shelter archers. The gates showed signs of having 
been recently widened. That, of course, would be to 
admit the motor trucks, though the older shape, a sort 
of monstrous keyhole must have been to accommodate 
a tall camel, with a wide load on his high back. There 
was no portcullis, no drawbridge, but signs of an old 
dry moat. 

She took another chocolate cookie and turned aside 
for a long string of donkeys, each loaded with twice its 
own bulk of goods. What might the loads be? She 
sniffed speculatively. Fertilizer ? No, hides, folded and 
as hard as planks. 

All the way to the market she played this game with 
herself, trying to picture what each thing was, what 


SUNHELMET SUE 


was its use, looking back to see what it might have 
been before it was in its present form. It was grand 
practice and she felt so triumphant when the guess 
could be proved correct. For instance, why was there 
so much space, free of houses, between the walls and the 
town? Because, said Sue May brightly to herself, in 
time of siege the people needed protected pasturage for 
their flocks, their only form of wealth. Then why also 
these great gaping holes in the ground? The thick- 
walled houses supplied that answer—the mud for 
building must come from somewhere. 

The market was a regular box of puzzles, color in 
riot and profusion, movement, new sounds and smells. 
Were those small red peppers, spread in tiny pinches 
on a mat? Yes, but what was that food alongside?— 
mounds of rice perhaps. The next was completely new 
to her, and even if she had asked the name she wouldn’t 
have been able to guess what it tasted like. 

Fulani girls, in bright skirts and head cloths, with 
gleaming rings of brass aswing from brown ears, sold 
milk and butter in great orange-hued gourds and small 
limes green like spilled jewels. Tiny girls balanced 
sweetmeats on a tray as they circled, calling their wares 
through the cheerful noisy crowd. Sue May’s head 
began to ache with so many new impressions and the 
blaze of sunlight began to scorch through the thin 
sleeves of her cotton dress. For a moment she stopped 
in the shadow of an iron-roofed stall where salt, in 
long cone moulds, was being sold. Then she saw him 


88 


THE SECRETARY HIRES A SECRETARY 

again. Crouched placidly in the shade of a mat shel¬ 
ter, with red and green goatskin goods spread before 
him, Garuba Jos, the trader from Lagos. So she had 
been right, he must have travelled by the same train 
from the south. It was pleasantly thrilling to meet 
someone you already knew in this vast crowd of 
strangers, and this time she wasn’t out to buy anything. 

Sue May smiled uncertainly and Garuba’s grin 
answered her, even before he rustled forward to stoop 
ceremoniously. 

Greetings came easily to her lips. It was so like 
meeting an old friend that she felt he must understand 
her stammering Haussa. Almost immediately she be¬ 
gan to tell him her trouble, “But the servants I seek 
are as scarce as fish in the desert.” 

The old man, crouching gracefully in the dust 
nodded grave understanding of this housewifely prob¬ 
lem. “Your need is already known to me.” Sue May 
had heard of the incredible speed with which gossip 
travelled in African towns. “For news,” he continued, 
“passes more swiftly than money in the market place. 
But here in this land of thieves—” He checked himself 
and Sue May spluttered into a laugh. She knew that 
his home town, Jos, of all cities of the north had the 
worst reputation. And what about that brass rhino 
that Garuba had sold her for native work ? 

But had he? Come to think of it, she herself had 
been so terribly sure of her own judgment that she’d 
never even asked. 


5 9 


SUNHELMET SUE 


“In all Zaria,” he was saying, “there is one honest 
man.” The trader turned and beckoned with a scoop¬ 
ing gesture of his fingers. 

He who came running from the neighboring stall 
was the same that had carried Garuba’s load in Lagos. 
But scarcely a “man.” His single garment, long and 
shirt-like was gleaming white; the melting eyes in a 
face black as tar were wide and long lashed as a ga¬ 
zelle’s. In height he came just above Sue May’s shoul¬ 
der, and Sue May was not tall. She judged him about 
ten. 

“This one, Audu, the worthless son of worthless 
parents,” the trader paused, examining the boy as 
though trying to find something good about him, “of 
my own household, first-born of my youngest daugh¬ 
ter.” Sue May wondered if one must assume that as a 
certificate of good character. 

“No,” continued the trader. This one had never been 
a servant. But he knew much of people, even of the 
Turawa, the white people. 

“Yes, M’a,” confirmed the small boy. Startling, 
that “M’a,” but Sue May already knew it was the 
equivalent of the Indian “Memsahib,” or the English 
“Ma’am.” 

“And moreover,” continued Audu’s grandparent, 
“he speaks many languages. Thus has he been of serv¬ 
ice to me in my trade.” 

Sue May eyed the boy gravely. Unsmiling he gazed 
back. She liked him, he looked sturdy and clean and 


90 


THE SECRETARY HIRES A SECRETARY 

dependable and whether he was good or bad she’d 
reached a stage of desperation where she felt she must 
acquire one servant, no matter of what age or size. But 
he’d scarcely fill the role of a cook; laughable to con¬ 
sider him as the Dering’s chief steward boy . . . and 
as for smallboy, most stewards preferred to hire their 
own. 

Reluctantly she shook her head. Scarcely would one 
so young and inexperienced suit the household of the 
Learned One. Yet even while she refused she felt that 
somehow a place must be made for him. The question 
was—how ? 

Garuba, watching her face, had a solution. “The 
Baturia herself has need of aid for the packing of 
loads, the running of errands, the washing of clothes, 
even the giving of orders.” 

Sue May considered. Two shillings a week for chop 
money. That was fifty cents a week for food, the wages 
of a smallboy in the whiteman’s household. And she 
herself as secretary had a small allowance—could it run 
to personal servants— say one, pint-sized? 

“Okay,” said Sue May. 

“Ban ji ba. I did not understand.” 

Sue May laughed and bobbed her head. “To Na 
yarda. It is agreed.” 

There were loads, perhaps purchases made in the 
market by the Baturia, to be carried? 

No, none of those. 

Then perhaps the load in her hand? 


SUNHELMET SUE 


She glanced down. One four-by-six-inch cracker box, 
now nearly empty. Gravely Audu accepted it, placed it 
atop his shaven head. 

“Thank you,” said Sue May to her servant’s grand¬ 
father. “Sai wata rana. Goodbye.” And so marched 
back to the station. 

“Behold,” said Sue May, mounting the resthouse 
steps under the amused eyes of the Derings and guests. 
“Behold, I have brought home the first of our house¬ 
hold. My own personal secretary!” 


92 



Chapter Seven 

ALONE IN AFRICA 

A udu, in spotless white coat and trousers, his new 
robe of office as secretary’s secretary, had rounded 
up a fresh batch of applicants and throughout one long 
breathless morning, on the hot resthouse verandah, 
Sue May received and sorted. 

Audu stood beside her table, gravely considering the 
boys as they passed. His impassive face gave no clue to 
his impression of the applicants, but once, as she came 
too close to engaging a tall, rather fine looking south¬ 
ern boy, she was halted by her secretary’s nervous shift 

93 


SUNHELMET SUE 

from foot to foot. Excuse was made to draw him aside 
and a brief explanation extracted: 

“No M’a. He no be houseboy. He be thief boy.” 
And with a gesture Audu indicated the polished ankles 
of a chain-gang man, newly released. 

Returning to her seat she examined the boy’s cre¬ 
dentials with greater care. The name agreed with the 
one given, but the description showed that the papers 
were borrowed or stolen. Others of the would-be house¬ 
hold were comically self-eliminating. One testimonial 
read, “Suli Yola calls himself a cook and has been with 
me two years. During that time he has learned to play 
the flute and I am being invalided home.” In the 
hands of the same boy was another that caused Sue 
May, choking, to hurry indoors and recover her gravity. 
“Suli Yola insists on a testimonial for my fortnight in 
purgatory. I strongly recommend that you give him a 
berth, the wider the better.” 

But Audu was the main critic and by lunchtime 
they had two very presentable boys, willing to go on 
trek, who met the Derings’ approval. These guaran¬ 
teed to find their own smallboys, and Sue May, mop¬ 
ping back the moist curls from her streaming brow, 
felt that she had already earned her passage to Africa. 

With such household matters settled, the Professor 
decided to leave for Jos the very next morning. His 
work lay beyond Jos, in the hill country among the 
primitive, non-Mohammedan peoples. He could go 
by road or bush path, taking Mrs. Dering on the pillion 


94 


ALONE IN AFRICA 


of the motorcycle, and since roads were too bad for a 
truck, their loads would travel on the heads of stout 
native porters. 

Sue May expostulated. That recording phonograph 
and other special apparatus he had ordered out from 
England, had he forgotten those ? 

“They might come on the next boat, or the one after 
that.” The Professor’s time was limited and he didn’t 
feel he could waste any more days in Zaria. 

“Sue May, be a dear,” said Mrs. Dering. “Wait here 
for them, and bring them on to us. There’s a train 
three times a week to Jos, and you can pick us up there.” 

Sue May’s heart hit her little white doeskin sandals. 
They were going towards Yar, the Yar that she wanted 
to explore, they were going into the real Africa, away 
from white men, uniforms and calling cards. For a 
moment she was silent, then she stiffened and sum¬ 
moned a weak smile. “Of course,” she murmured. 
Perhaps the wait wouldn’t be so long. 

Perhaps it wouldn’t. In the meantime she helped 
with arrangements for tomorrow’s trek, found that 
you ordered carriers by sending a request to the Pro¬ 
vincial Office, and that you had to take bags, literally 
bags of nickels, pennies and half pennies, on trek with 
you, since each man received three pence a day when 
you weren’t moving and six pence, about ten cents, a 
day when you were. At the end of the trip there was 
another three pence due to them for every day you’d 
journeyed. Moreover, each load must weigh no more 


95 


SUNHELMET SUE 


than sixty pounds—an appalling weight, but a good 
carrier could carry a load of a hundred pounds for 
miles and miles and never feel it, and seventeen miles 
was the official day’s trek. “Whew,” thought Sue May, 
“what a lot to learn!” And that wasn’t nearly all of it. 

All the Derings’ possessions except camp beds, break¬ 
fast kit and toilet articles were packed and ready that 
evening, and it was still dark when Sue May paddled 
sleepily out in dressing gown and tall mosquito boots 
to say goodbye. 

“If you have any problems, take them straight to 
the Resident or the Station Magistrate.” Professor 
Dering tickled the motor bike’s carburetor and gave a 
violent kick to the starter. “But you’re even safer 
here,” he shouted above the din, “than at home.” 

Mrs. Dering leaned from her seat to kiss Sue May. 
“You’ll be along soon,” she assured her. 

“Well, goodbye,” the Professor’s voice roared to be 
heard above the roar of the engine. “And don’t take 
any . . .” he groped for the term, “any Birmingham 
rhinos.” 

“ ’Bye . . . e. And don’t . . . meet . . . any . . . 
cannibals. . . 

The motorcycle’s din faded to a distant put put down 
the dusty drive, already growing lighter with full dawn. 

The resthouse with its one little hurricane lamp, her 
own small luggage, the folding table, chair and bed 
looked as forlorn as a poet’s garret and it would be 
hours yet to breakfast. Sue May kicked off her boots 

96 


ALONE IN AFRICA 


and tucked the mosquito net in close behind her. Oh 
dear, she wasn’t going to cry, was she, just because 
she was alone in Africa! Why, this was excitement, this 
was mad adventure, this was—what—she—had—come 
—for— 

“Tea, M’a!” A faint scratch-scratching on the mat 
over the doorway broke through her dreams. Rosy 
dawn streamed through the windows, birds were shout¬ 
ing what a fine clear African day it was and Audu had 
brought that tropical necessity, early morning tea. 

“Bless you, my child,” murmured Sue May. Kind 
of fun at that being on her own. Here too was a note, 
a chit as they were called out here. Would she come 
along to breakfast with Mr. and Mrs. Station Magis¬ 
trate? Would she? Sue May popped three lumps 
of sugar into her teacup and bit hungrily into a honey- 
ripe mango. 

It was two hours later, on her way over to break¬ 
fast, that she had her brain wave. She passed a group 
of natives: one husband, smiling, garbed in a loin 
cloth, with bow and arrows and tin teakettle, and 
two or three women of his household each carrying the 
woman’s load, a large calabash gourd with a string 
net over its assorted contents. Behind manfully strut¬ 
ted a small child, scarcely three years old, an apple¬ 
sized calabash balanced on his shaven poll. 

The whole group gave cheery greeting. Sue May 
found that she had answered mechanically, as one who 
says good morning on a country lane at home. 


97 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Why, Africa was friendly, Africa was kind, not one 
bit the country of dread and terror, the dark continent 
she had expected to find. Why couldn’t she. . . . ? 

Well, why not? Over bacon and eggs she cautiously 
tested her idea on the Station Magistrate. Was Africa 
really so safe now, that anyone, say herself for instance, 
could just walk from place to place without fear of 
being robbed or starved? 

“Nigeria? Yes, perfectly safe.” The S.M. was ob¬ 
viously proud of the fact. “Your only enemies would 
be the sun and malaria and bad water.” 

That did seem pretty definite although he wasn’t 
applying the idea to Sue May herself. And what was 
the easiest method of travelling in this country? 

“Oh, a push-bike of course,” she was told. 

“A push-bi ... ?” 

“You know, an ordinary pedal bicycle, as opposed 
to a mo-bike.” Sue May sometimes felt that she had 
more difficulty understanding English English, than 
Haussa. 

She accepted a healthy second cup of cocoa and 
ventured further. Those loads from England that 
Professor Dering had been enquiring about ? 

No, the Station Magistrate hadn’t been able to locate 
them as yet. He’d rung up the Resident’s office and the 
railway station. Anyway the next boat wasn’t due for 
some days yet and what was Sue May doing for tennis 
this afternoon? Would she care for a horse and a spot 
of riding? Mrs. S.M. remembered the club dance to- 

9 5 


ALONE IN AFRICA 

morrow night and stated that there were any number 
of nice young men who wanted to meet the pretty 
little American. 

The “pretty little American” smiled and was tact¬ 
fully vague about frivolous activities, evaded yet another 
invitation to play golf and returned to her own domi¬ 
cile having given the impression that she had urgent 
work of the Professor’s to finish. Actually she in¬ 
tended to go into conference with her secretary about 
those two loads which all the King’s horses and all the 
King’s men hadn’t been able to round up. It was 
just barely possible, of course, that they had come out 
by an earlier boat, and that nobody had thought of 
that. 

But for once her omniscient ten-year-old seemed to 
fail. He could only suggest that they ask his grand¬ 
father. And not a bad idea at that. After all, the 
native trader must have goods of his own going astray 
and some method of recovering them. 

An hour later Audu returned from the market with 
the word that Garuba Jos would buga the wire to a 
fellow trader in Lagos. Sue May reached for her dic¬ 
tionary and puzzled out that “buga” meant “strike” 
and that the trader would send a telegram for her. 
Why hadn’t she thought of that? But then, she 
wouldn’t have had the faintest notion of whom to send 
it to. 

Tennis on the hot laterite courts after teatime, her 
mind still on those annoying boxes. Back at the rest- 


99 


SUNHELMET SUE 


house again for a nap before the evening’s social round, 
and there stood Garuba Jos. 

“Two loads?” he enquired. “That is all?” 

Sue May nodded eagerly. 

Garuba Jos preened himself as he smoothed out a 
pink telegram on the verandah steps. “Then even at 
this hour they are leaving Eko . . . Lagos.” 

How wonderful! Gratefully she started to pay for 
the telegrams but was only permitted to give thanks 
for service rendered. 

That evening at the club she mentioned the odd 
affair of a mere market trader’s being able to find her 
loads. 

“You can’t tell about these mere traders,” laughed 
the S.M. “There was a trader chap on the Benue, went 
round in plain white, never put on side of any sort and 
sent up a wail to high Heaven when they raised his 
tax from ten shillings to twenty a year—say about four 
dollars. This our dance, isn’t it ?—Oh, about the trader. 
Well, a little while after that, as his duty as a good 
Mohammedan, he decided to give his tithe to the poor. 
So he sent out orders up and down river to withdraw 
all his loans, take stock and bring in his capital. You 
should have seen it! Canoe loads of money sailing up 
and down the Benue and up the Niger. Banks had 
to call on Government Treasuries to come to their aid 
with hard cash. Oh, it was a time!” 

“But—but how? I don’t understand.” 

“You see,” explained the S.M., twirling her in a 


IOO 


ALONE IN AFRICA 


bumpy old-fashioned waltz, “the old boy had proposed 
to have every cent of his money poured out into the 
courtyard and every tenth coin set aside. The D.O. had 
an awful time, explaining how it could all be done by 
accountancy, on paper, without spending money on 
canoes and paddlers. And I believe they made up for 
the struggle by raising his tax to five dollars a year!” 

Sue May chuckled, thinking of Garuba and of how 
he had sold her on the idea of a personal servant. Yes, 
it was possible he too was one of that sort, simple in 
appearance, but underneath that a wily Oriental. And 
certainly he had influence. 

Then for two days, almost for two nights also, she 
planned and plotted, dropped artless questions in the 
middle of a dance, managed to get a detailed hand- 
drawn map of the route over which the Professor had 
gone, with lists, distances and descriptions of resthouses 
on the way. Also she had the mysterious Yar to follow 
up, for she felt that here in Zaria, with so many white 
men from so many corners of the country, was her 
best chance of getting information. 

The Station Magistrate had never been posted in 
the province which contains Yar. Soldiers and rail¬ 
road men had no knowledge of it, since no railway 
line ran within days of it. The Resident had once, 
years and years ago, been in that neighborhood but 
had not visited Yar. It grew more and more mysteri¬ 
ous. 

Then at a tennis party on Sue May’s very last day, 


101 


SUNHELMET SUE 


at Zaria, a chance survey man, on the very eve of his 
retirement from the country, established the ancient 
city as a fact and not a fable. 

“We had a minor triangulation point (whatever that 
may be, thought Sue May)—on a hill; just a huge out¬ 
crop of granite you know. It’s not marked on any 
official maps. It’s a group of three dome-shaped rocks, 
almost surrounded by deep thorn brake.” And he 
made a little sketch on the back of an envelope to 
show her exactly where it was. That was cheering, 
that meant she might be able to find Yar. “But how 
does it come to interest you?” he asked. 

That was difficult to explain to any but a fellow ar¬ 
chaeologist. She said she didn’t really expect to find 
anything concrete; it was the clues that the place might 
furnish that she was after. The Governor had said that 
it was the splitting up point of a great tribal migra¬ 
tion, possibly of several, over hundreds and hundreds 
of years. What had drawn the wanderers there, why 
did they split up there, what could she expect to find ? 
Old walls, perhaps; old pottery; incredibly ancient 
caves with drawings; old stone implements? It was 
the nearest thing to a clue she had had since she reached 
West Africa. It didn’t seem to belong to anyone else; 
Sue May meant to follow it to the end. 

With the two maps in hand and, the missing loads 
on their way up by train, she checked over further 
needs. Money? She had enough to pay the carriers 
for her half dozen or so personal loads and she’d need 


102 


ALONE IN AFRICA 

food and water for only two or three days. But over 
that matter of transport she had to ask point blank for 
assistance. She couldn’t afford to buy a bicycle. 

The Station Magistrate received her wild idea with 
almost deflating calm. “You won’t have any trouble 
on such a short trek, but if you do, send for the nearest 
Village Chief and let him cope with it. Bicycle? You 
might as well take mine; we use a car round Zaria. 
Eight carriers? I’ll see to that. What time’d you like 
’em? Better start before daylight, then you’ll make 
Zangon Aya resthouse before midmorning.” 

Sue May gasped. With a long and complicated list 
of arguments up her sleeve as to why she thought she 
must push on and just how well she had made her 
plans she felt like a pricked balloon, to have no use for 
them, no opposition to overcome. She went home 
wheeling the S.M.’s push-bike—it had been years since 
she’d ridden one and she preferred to do her prelimi¬ 
nary falling off in privacy. 

Since it was a man’s machine she had to don jodh¬ 
purs and even then, with the saddle lowered as far 
as it would go, she couldn’t mount without some sort 
of step. Once up, it was all right and perhaps her legs 
would grow a bit in the next few days. The problem 
was, mounted, how to get down ? On a man’s machine 
you couldn’t just step off. 

Sue May rode down the long stretch to the court¬ 
house, shakily negotiated the turn, wheeled back to 
the railway station, turned and whizzed past her own 


SUNHELMET SUE 


house once more. But she couldn’t get off. Was she 
fated to spend her time in Africa riding round and 
round Zaria, a sort of feminine Flying Dutchman? 
Sue May giggled nervously and visioned Audu bring¬ 
ing out her meals on a tray, to be grabbed, a spoon¬ 
ful at a time as she cycled past. 

Finally she set her jaw firmly and bracing herself 
for the inevitable turned into the compound. If there 
was no other way, she’d have to let gravity settle it; 
after all a parachute jumper must keep in practice. 
Picking a spot that looked comparatively yielding she 
took one foot off the pedal, balanced to one side, 
hopped frantically for a moment and came down in 
a confusion of wheels, legs, arms and dust. At least 
that had saved the machine. 

From the resthouse dashed an anxious Audu, cluck¬ 
ing reproaches like a mother hen, and sorted Sue May 
from the bicycle. Why then had the Baturia not called, 
that one might hold her steed? 

“I never thought of that,” said the Baturia in Eng¬ 
lish. 

That was the fateful evening. Taking her courage 
in both hands, Sue May told Audu, “Let all be made 
ready, for tomorrow at early dawn we start.” 

And Audu answered in a tone of new respect, “To, 
Baturia. Very good.” 

But were, or weren’t those loads arriving? Would 
they be the right ones? Did they, or didn’t they con¬ 
tain the whole of the missing goods ? Sleep that night 



After All, ^ parachute Jam pear 
must Keep in practicef 


































































































ALONE IN AFRICA 

seemed almost impossible. Once she heard the up- 
train whistle, and it was difficult not to leap from bed 
at one in the morning to go down to the station. A 
little later came the soft murmur of the arriving 
carriers, and she was dressed, ready to start long before 
Audu appeared with breakfast on a tray. He must 
have been taking lessons of the Resident’s cook, for the 
boiled eggs and toast were excellent. In the light of 
a hurricane lamp Sue May had her six boxes arranged 
in a row, watched the camp bed taken down and 
rolled with its net into a bag, selected the two strongest 
looking men and let the others hoist their loads. 

A plaintive little two-note whistle from the head 
carrier was the signal for the loads to move off. Soon 
the little caravan faded into the dawn dusk. Remained 
two carriers, one Audu, one bicycle and one American 
archaeologist. Sue May sighed and turned towards the 
machine. 

Audu proudly wheeled it forth, and, as though it 
had been an Arab stallion, held it while his Baturia 
vaulted into the saddle. With a gesture that the others 
were to follow her, she turned out of the compound, 
too concerned to bid the resthouse goodbye, and 
wheeled towards the station. 

Now to know her fate. She’d been telling herself 
that the boxes would be there. But if they weren’t how 
could she summon back the carriers and return to the 
resthouse ? 

Sue May fell off her bicycle. There were two boxes, 


SUNHELMET SUE 


with a native policeman in white and red riga stand¬ 
ing guard over them and a courteous chit from no one 
she’d ever met saying that the writer understood from 
the Station Magistrate that Miss Innis would require 
them before the station opened. 

Restraining an impulse to dance a fandango on the 
dark station steps but inwardly one broad grin of 
triumph, she ordered the loads onto the carrier’s heads, 
and remounted from the station steps. 

This time she was really off—on the trail of an un¬ 
known Yar and an unknowing Professor, her movable 
home spread out over half a mile of Nigeria. 

Alone in Africa! And the sun rising thrillingly 
before her. 


108 


Chapter Eight 

THE LITTLE JUDGE 

S ue may sat on a resthouse floor and gazed about 
her. She felt tired, hungry and hot. Also slightly 
apprehensive. Suppose, she thought, her carriers had 
lost their way, or had taken a different turning, and 
never showed up? She’d be unpleasantly in the stew, 
with all this alone-in-Africa business. A stranger with¬ 
out food, money or possessions. Then she grinned at 
herself. Those boxes had come all right. Why couldn’t 
she just relax and let things happen, not worry so 
about them? Sue May relaxed and surveyed the rest- 
house. 

A funny little place, hardly bigger than a playhouse. 
Just a bit of the field turned into a hut, for there was 
the grass thatching the roof, its under side like the 
spread ribs of an umbrella, and there was the red 
brown earth, mixed with water probably—she must 
find out all about building later—built into the foot- 
thick, windowless wall. 

Through the doorway a shimmer of heat, a narrow, 
bare and dusty trail. Down this would come the 
carriers following her wheel marks. She wriggled her 


709 


SUNHELMET SUE 


back against the wall and hoped it would be soon. 
How many miles an hour could a carrier do? She’d 
passed them more than an hour back along the road. 

What was that, a bird call ? It came again, faint and 
far off. Jumping up she gazed down the road. The 
whistle grew louder as around the bend came one 
man, then another, then the whole file of eight with 
Audu in the rear, moving easily, tirelessly, loads bal¬ 
anced on heads with not so much as a hand upheld to 
steady them. Almost immediately the little compound 
was full of noise and pleasant orderly activity. Audu 
moved about directing. A chair was set under a tree. 
There was a chop-box with a miraculously cool drink 
of lime juice on it; one of her books lay open beside 
it. A thin thread of smoke began to ascend from 
another of the little group of houses that formed the 
compound. Sue May glanced at her watch. 

Fifteen minutes. And already she felt thrillingly at 
home here. For sheer efficiency you couldn’t beat the 
African native on trek. 

The head carrier stood before her. Would the Ba- 
turia wish to sleep here, or only rest and eat? 

Sue May considered gravely. Apparently it made 
no difference to these hard peasants whether they did 
eight or eighteen miles in a day. “I rest only,” she 
said. “When the sun has lessened I take the road.” 

“Daidai ne. Very Good.” The carriers were strag¬ 
gling in groups back along the way they had come, 
that would be to the small stream half a mile back. 


no 


THE LITTLE JUDGE 

Not all, however; one, enormously tall and broad, with 
the typical carrier’s wrinkled brow where many loads 
had pressed, was cheerily acting as “smallboy” to the 
diminutive Audu, opening a can of something, setting 
out a dish from the open chop-box, bringing in more 
faggots for the fire. 

Over lunch, which she ordained should be served 
beneath the tree, Sue May felt like one of those in¬ 
trepid African explorers who are always being snapped 
for the pages of their geographical memoirs. Only 
there should be a lion corpse or two, some she had 
just shot, hanging in the background, shouldn’t there ? 
Lions. . . . There was a thought for you . . . nobody 
had mentioned lions! Anyway the thought of them 
didn’t spoil her appetite, that is, not much. 

After lunch, Africa disappeared and returned again 
to her consciousness with a shock, as the sun was grow¬ 
ing low. She was curled up on a coat inside the rest- 
house and everything had gone strangely silent. Grab¬ 
bing up her coat and sunhelmet she hurried out. Yes, 
the carriers had gone, by her orders. So had Audu. In 
something of a panic she strapped her coat behind her 
bicycle and wheeled it to the road. It was reassuring 
to see scuffled footprints in the dust along the way the 
men should have gone. She mounted from the low wall 
that encircled the compound and made off on the 
trail of her household goods. 

Presently her progress was checked by a fork in the 
track. But not for long. A friendly carrier had barred 


hi 


SUNHELMET SUE 


off one fork by scraping his foot through the dust. 
She went on with an added feeling of warmth for 
Africa and Africans. 

Every five minutes was cooler now and it was fun 
trying to balance the bicycle round the twisting narrow 
track, more like a gutter than a path. In spite of the 
many hundreds, perhaps thousands of years this path 
had been used, worn deep by bare brown feet, washed 
in runnels every rainy season, it twisted and wound still 
to the vagaries of the first marcher along it. She tinkled 
her bell as she came up behind a man and a girl, saw 
them make a startled jump sideways, then dip in greet¬ 
ing. The girl waved after her, applauding one of her 
own sex on anything so revolutionary as a bicycle. 

She passed odd groups of people who made courte¬ 
ous salutation, some tall reddish monkeys, like large 
airedales which loped across the road at the ping ping 
of her bell, then more people, a whole family down to 
the smallest infant, toddling in a line. 

Slivers of sugar cane cast along the road gave notice 
of a wayside market, like the litter of cigarette and 
chocolate papers about a candy stand. The smallest 
possible market under the hugest of trees, three little 
stalls no more than sunshades of matting on sticks, but 
doing a roaring trade. Bowls of fermented milk, bowls 
of jura, round balls of guinea cornmeal seasoned and 
rolled in flour. A score of shoppers gave greeting as 
she wheeled past. 

She identified her destination, among the other huts 


7/2 


THE LITTLE JUDGE 

of a small village, by the low wall of the resthouse 
compound. Audu must have been watching for her, 
for he raced alongside and grabbed her handlebars. 
Sue May dismounted with dignity. 

The Sara\in Barrihj, the chief of the resthouse, and 
the Sarakin Gari, chief of the town, bade her welcome. 
Food had already been prepared for the carriers, since 
news of them had gone ahead. But of course the men 
would need their chop money to buy it. 

Audu staggered forward with Sue May’s tin trunk. 
At sight of it the carriers lined up. To them this must 
be routine, but to Sue May it was An Occasion. With 
a gesture she produced her keys, unlocked the trunk, 
brought forth a green canvas bag of coins. In nickel 
pennies her little stock of money was heavily imposing. 
A check-off of carriers. All complete. 

Counting out six coins into each horny palm she 
passed down the rank feeling like an inspecting gen¬ 
eral. Really, she thought as she retired to wash off the 
stains of travel, if you followed the established customs, 
Africa was ridiculously easy. 

A well-earned glass of lime juice and water, and 
Sue May brushed her curls and was mopping her 
face with a sponge dipped in water when sounds of 
violent and frightening argument penetrated the 
shadows of the rest hut. 

“It’s no business of mine,” she reassured herself. 
“I’m not a policeman, I’m not a magistrate or a Gov¬ 
ernment official.” And resolutely she considered what 


SUNHELMET SUE 


dress would be cool and restful after jodhpurs and the 
dust of the road. Then Audu scratched at the matting- 
covered door. 

There was a dispute between the carriers and the 
resthouse keeper concerning the price of their evening 
meal. Sue May threw up her hands in dismay. “But 
they can’t expect me to settle this!” 

“Yes M’a,” said Audu impassively. And this just 
as she had been congratulating herself on the simplic¬ 
ity of African travel!—She followed him out into the 
compound, where, against the blaze of a dramatic sun¬ 
set eight tall carriers were gesticulating with an almost 
Mediterranean ferocity, and a wizened old man, the 
resthouse keeper, made gestures as though fending 
them off. Beside him, taking no notice whatever, was 
the Village Chief. 

“What,” Sue May strode into their midst and hoped 
that she looked imposing, “is the meaning of this 
noise r 

Everyone seemed to speak at once. She stilled the 
riot with an uplifted hand and turned to the rest- 
house keeper. With Audu’s help she got at the prob¬ 
lem. The Baturia’s carriers were asking return of their 
payment for the food provided by the resthouse keeper. 
They claimed that his price was too high for the food 
he gave. 

“Then let them buy from someone else,” suggested 
Sue May. 

In this small village there would be no other food 


THE LITTLE JUDGE 

ready for them. The resthouse food had been pre¬ 
pared since noon when passing travellers had reported 
that Sue May’s carriers were on their way. 

“Oh,” said Sue May, temporarily stumped. Vaguely 
she regarded the round floury ball of food in the gourd 
bowl. What did they call that ? she asked. It was fura. 
She stood for a moment thinking frantically; surely 
there was some way to get at the exact value of this 
stuff. She remembered the Jura she had seen at the 
wayside market. 

“Bring,” she commanded Audu, “my bicycle.” 

Audu brought. In ten minutes by her wrist watch 
she was back, facing the momentary problem of how 
to avoid falling off her wheel with a bowl of jura in her 
hand, a descent hardly fitting to the role of a would-be 
Solomon. But a large tree close to the compound gave 
her a chance to stop close to its support. She hopped 
once and let the wheel slide from beneath her, and 
landed safely upright. 

Without words she placed the bowl of jura beside 
the row of calabashes containing the carriers’ food, 
compared the size of the jura balls, the color, and even, 
taking a little pinch of each, the taste. 

“No difference,” she announced. 

The Village Chief, interested, took samples and con¬ 
firmed her judgment. 

“The price of this jura, which I bought, was three¬ 
pence at the zungo, the wayside market.” She gestured 
back along the road. “So let the money paid to the 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Sarakjn Barriki be placed on the ground beside the 
food, then for each bowl of jura, like unto mine in 
size and weight, let threepence be counted from this 
money which I have brought.” 

Ah-ha. They’d got the idea, were clustering round, 
interested, while the headman measured out the food. 
She caught excited murmurs. u Fura ya fi yau/a . . . 
the jura is the greater!” “Aa \urdi ya fi shi. . . . No, 
the money is the more!” 

Halfway through the bowls of jura and still you 
couldn’t see which side was going to come out ahead. 
It was more like a game now than an acrimonious 
dispute. Getting towards the end now, only two three¬ 
pences left and even Sue May couldn’t see what the 
result was going to be. One bowl more . . . and at 
last the headman held up a small ball of jura. That 
was left over when all the money was exhausted. 
Really, the closest finish she’d ever seen. 

Ceremoniously the surplus was handed over to her, 
there was a sudden white grin across the wide face of 
the Chief; a chuckle ran through the defeated but 
good-natured carriers, and Sue May, smiling broadly, 
turned and handed the jura to Audu. 

“There is the salary of the judge’s assistant.” 


7/6 


Chapter Nine 

WET SQUEEZE 

I t might have been a rather fearsome night. Tucked 
inside her mosquito net, flashlamp beside her hand, 
Sue May saw eerie shadows cross the doorway, heard 
the swish-swish of silent feet. Then came shuffling 
sounds and a snarl. 

“Don’t be a fool,” she told herself, relaxing. “They’re 
only dogs, stray pi-dogs.” Lean hungry creatures from 
the village, but welcome to whatever chicken bones 
they could pick up around the compound. 

And again almost immediately Audu’s tactful 
scratch at the door. “Tea, M’a,” and it was another 
day, or nearly. The dawn breeze stirred the sluggish 
air of the hut as she crept from bed and scrambled 
into her garments. 

Outside in the compound sleepy carriers were as¬ 
sembling in the semi-darkness, and somewhere near 
by a bird began to wake and there was a pleasant 
creosote odor from Audu’s cook fire. 

Quite a veteran, she felt, later in the morning as she 
halted her bicycle against a convenient stone and passed 
the time of day with fellows voyagers. Yes, there 


**7 


SUNHELMET SUE 


was a whiteman ahead, Maitambaya, the Questioner, he 
was called, one who asked of people the most foolish 
things; matters of common knowledge—such as who 
were allowed to marry whom; whether a child took 
the name of its father; how corn was ground, how fire 
was made . . . and would you believe it? . . . this 
was really comical . . . how water was drawn from a 
well! 

Sue May learned more of this strange person as she 
went further on her route: as “inquisitive as a \adan- 
gave, a lizard,” “as simple as a newborn child, yet of 
marvelous understanding.” Garnering the choicest 
items she saved them for Mrs. Dering’s amusement. 

Lunchtime brought her triumphantly to her first 
halt. The resthouse was long disused, roofless, and the 
compound overgrown with weeds, but once it had 
been planted with trim lines of baure, false-fig trees, 
and their thick black shade made pleasant shelter for 
her and all her carriers, with room to spare. Then as 
she was finishing the dish of canned raspberries and 
cream from a can, something on the broken wall of 
the resthouse caught her gaze. Carvings? No, it 
couldn’t be that; people would scarcely carve in un¬ 
baked clay. 

Mouldings, they must be, round what had once been 
doors and windows. A good archaeologist lets nothing, 
however unimportant, pass without explanation. She 
put aside thought of an afternoon nap and went out 
into the blaze of sunlight to examine her discovery. 

118 


WET SQUEEZE 

Yes, mouldings they were, by someone obviously un¬ 
trained but with considerable talent. A man with a 
gun, both, for convenience, shown in profile, about a 
foot high. Lizards and scorpions flat against the wall 
and of the same dimensions as the man with the gun. 
Others too, men with headloads, with bows and arrows, 
one with a drum and another with a long horn which 
he blew lustily with puffed cheeks. She’d never seen 
anything like them. 

Sue May wondered if she could photograph them. 
No, they were of dark red earth and on the shadowed 
side of the resthouse, with no brightness to give con¬ 
trast. Now, later in the afternoon . . . she glanced 
about her ... she might be able to get a good picture. 
But surely there was some better way. 

How about a wet squeeze?—the moulding wasn’t 
too deep and undercut for that. Sue May turned back 
to gaze speculatively at her loads. The whole job 
would have to be improvised of course, which would 
make it harder but all the greater triumph if she suc¬ 
ceeded. 

Audu, hastily summoned, was sent to collect all paper 
in which household goods might have been packed. 
She looked it over with despair. Nearly all was brown 
paper, but she selected a dismembered copy of the 
London Times which had been used to keep cook- 
pots from rattling. There wasn’t nearly enough. Then 
she remembered a half dozen pulp magazines which 
she had been reserving in case she felt utterly bored 


I 


SUNHELMET SUE 

and desperate. Ruthlessly she sacrificed them to the 
cause of science. 

How much of the moulding could she cover? Not 
all. Better pick out some characteristic bit; the man 
with the gun for instance. Audu was told to bring a 
calabash of water, the brush with which the Baturia 
scrubbed the ends of her fingers, and the large rubber 
sponge from her washing things. 

Mentally she marked off the area of her labors, 
dampened it carefully all over with the sponge, 
dampened it again and still again. But still, as the 
hard earth sucked the moisture up, it continued to look 
as dry as a bone. Now what? The books didn’t tell 
you how to dampen a thing that refused to get wet. 
Audu brought more water and she tried again. 

Well, if it wouldn’t dampen, it wouldn’t. She could 
wet the paper, however, and handling a large double 
sheet of the Times so as not to tear it, she plastered it 
tight against the moulding. Then with a wet nail 
brush, first gently, then more firmly she pounded it 
into all the crevices and corners. The paper tore a bit 
and looked hopeless, but the next double sheet covered 
the tears, and the one after that the tears in the second. 
She smashed it all in, driving out small bubbles of air. 
Westerns and Creepy Tales went to join the staid and 
stately Times to preserve a record of primitive African 
art. At least one hoped they would, though all the 
thing looked like now was a dingy grey pancake. 

Sue May sucked her bruised knuckles and decided 


120 


WET SQUEEZE 

that nothing more could be done with her attempt; 
it must be left to dry. It wouldn’t take long in this 
hot air. For the first time since lunch she became aware 
of her surroundings and turning from her work dis¬ 
covered a semicircle of interested carriers, wandering 
travellers who had drawn in from the road, some small 
boys from the village and the usual collection of 
scratching pi-dogs. 

She’d give it half an hour to dry. An hour later 
she was still giving it half an hour. The shadows were 
getting long, if she didn’t want to spend another 
night on the trail of the Derings, her loads must go 
forward. 

Half an hour later the carriers had gone and Sue 
May was still waiting hopefully. At last, just as she’d 
decided to risk it and remove the squeeze, wet or dry, 
she heard a slight plop. The poultice had also wearied 
of waiting and fallen from the wall. With a rush she 
was on her knees beside it. Undamaged. Cheers! And 
quite definitely you could recognize the impression 
of the man with the gun. Too damp to travel yet. 
Cautiously Sue May slipped both hands beneath it and 
brought it round to the sunny side of the hut. Once 
this was dry you could use it as a mold; plaster of 
Paris poured into it and allowed to set would come 
away, a perfect reproduction of the original, and could 
even be colored red brown if you wished. It would 
look nice on her bedroom wall at home. 

Carefully she rolled the squeeze in her coat and 


121 


SUNHELMET SUE 




strapped it on the bicycle, mounted and was off. 
Pleasant through the cool of the late afternoon. She 
must hurry, must not lose her way, for sunset came 
promptly at six o’clock and once the sun was down 
it was dark almost immediately. 

In half an hour’s pedaling she had overtaken her 
loads. In an hour and with the sun just dropping be¬ 
hind the horizon she came within sight of an obvious 
resthouse standing alone amid some flamboyant trees. 
Silently her pneumatic tires turned the corner, swung 
into the compound. There were three deck chairs 
outside, two of them, hurray! occupied. 

From still a few yards away Sue May called cheerily, 
“Salaam Alai\um, Maitambaya . Peace be upon you, 
Oh Questioner!” 

Unexpectedly came the Derings’ assured reply, 
“Alai\um es Salaam. Karamin Alkali. Upon you be 
the peace, oh Little Judge!” 

So the story of the carriers’ dispute and her arbitra¬ 
tion had brought her fame, and that fame had already 
travelled on before her! The Little Judge grinned. The 
Little Judge fell off her bicycle. 


122 


Chapter Ten 

ON THE TRAIL OF YAR 

S ue may liked their next place, Pau Bam. It was 
cooler than Zaria or Jos railhead, being on the high 
plateau country of north Nigeria. It was wild enough 
to suit even her ideas of darkest Africa; white men 
were scarce, in fact except for the Derings and the local 
District Officer who paid them a tactful visit on their 
second day in camp, they hadn’t seen anyone but 
natives for ten days. 

And such natives. Every tiny village different from 
its neighbors, as Turks differ from Scotsmen; speaking 
a different tongue; wearing different garments; shav¬ 
ing their heads in a different manner; using a different 
type hoe, with a crop peculiar to each village. And of 
course it was these divergences that the Professor had 
come to elucidate and record for the Government. 
In another generation they would all be smoothed out 
by the rising tide of civilization. A pity, that, she 
thought. 

But most of all she liked it because it was close to 
the mysterious Yar which she had vowed to explore. 
Latterly there hadn’t been much chance for archaeol- 


SUNHELMET SUE 


ogy. It wasn’t the Derings’ household that deterred her; 
fluffy Mrs. Dering seemed not so much to run the 
household as graciously to let it run itself in such a way 
that meals came on time and nothing ever got mis¬ 
laid or broken. But the Professor’s studies kept his 
secretary fully occupied; so many important notes to 
tabulate and file. She was learning a lot but she ached 
to be off for a few hours, at least, to look over the land, 
and with Audu as interpreter to see if she could find 
just where Yar lay and what it was worth to an ar¬ 
chaeologist. 

Day followed day and still she couldn’t get away. 
For instance there was all one hot and breathless after¬ 
noon she’d spent transcribing word lists for the Pro¬ 
fessor. That was a never ending job. It meant ruling 
long sheets of foolscap and on the left hand edge of the 
first of them writing a list of simple English words: 
goat, mother, child, house, corn, and the like. The 
next column would be the same words in some native 
language, recorded in phonetic script according to their 
sound, for, of course, these natives had no written 
language. Phonetic script has dozens, almost scores, 
of sound symbols, dots and dipthongs, hisses and 
strange gasps and r’s and gutterals. Column followed 
column to the full width of the sheet, transcribed from 
the Professor’s cramped handwriting in his notebooks 
and his secretary must be absolutely exact about it all, 
for if mistakes were made, it might mean tracing the 
migration of one tribe, based on its language likeness, 


124 


ON THE TRAIL OF YAR 

through an entirely wrong channel. It was tiresome 
work for a hot African afternoon. 

When teatime came Sue May was flushed and 
breathless. 

“I do believe,” said Mrs. Dering, “the child has a 
fever. Have you taken your quinine today?” with a 
faint frown of concern between her eyes. 

“I do believe the child needs a holiday,” said the 
Professor solemnly. “How long since you had a holi¬ 
day, Susan, to go on a regular razzle-dazzle?” The 
Professor liked slang, he said it tended to keep the 
language alive, though Sue May was sometimes puzzled 
to know just what he meant by it. Razzle-dazzle was 
easy. 

“Not since I met you at Zungon Aya,” admitted the 
Derings’ secretary. 

“Tut-tut! As long as that? Then let’s see nothing 
of you all day tomorrow.” 

“Have a late breakfast in bed,” was Mrs. Dering’s 
characteristic suggestion, “and there were some really 
good books out on the last boat train mail.” 

Books indeed! Why one was living a story here, no 
need to read adventures, this was the real thing. Sue 
May was up by daylight and checking her necessities 
for the day’s trek. They had been collected at odd 
times during the past week, whenever she had thought 
of this trip and what she intended to do on it. But 
surveyed now in the practical light of dawn it was an 
appalling heap. 


125 


SUNHELMET SUE 


A big, felt-covered water bottle, it wouldn’t do to 
drink unfiltered water; a prismatic compass—well, she 
could scrap that, the African sun didn’t fail at this 
season of the year; binoculars, a map—those would 
have to go with her, a heavy bag of nickel coins, a 
bundle of folded newspapers for a wet squeeze, and a 
brush and sponge. She had even rounded up a pick 
and shovel, but she just couldn’t manage those. Some 
passing native would be sure to have a hoe, and after 
all this was a prospecting trip, not actual excavation. 
A camera, of course, she’d carry that herself; Audu 
could manage soap, a towel and her sandwich lunch. 
A notebook and pencil and of course an empty chop 
box or two to bring back whatever specimens she 
picked up. 

Even without the pick and shovel it was quite a 
pile for one small secretary’s secretary. “Can you 
manage it, Audu?” If not, what could she leave be¬ 
hind ? 

“Yes, M’a,” Audu assured her. “I be fit.” 

The empty chop-boxes would serve as containers, at 
least on the journey out. Audu vanished for an instant 
and reappeared in travelling kit; a discarded haversack 
of Mrs. Dering’s, a calabash water bottle to balance it 
and oh . . . Sue May gasped in horror. 

“But Audu, that hat!” 

It was a purple homburg; really there ought to be 
another word for “purple,” it just about dimmed the 
rising African sun. A ribbon of deeper hue encircled 


126 


ON THE TRAIL OF YAR 

the crown and behind, Tyrol fashion, a rakish yellow 
feather. Audu almost strutted. 

Here was need for tact, for subtle diplomacy. 
Choking down her mirth Sue May pointed out that 
such a hat should be reserved, like the Bature’s stiff 
shirt, only for greatest occasions. Supposing it rained ? 
—the sky was cloudless. Supposing it got blown off 
into a stream?—not a breath of air was stirring. Or, 
what if it should get stolen? 

Audu’s hand went up to insure present safety. “Yes 
M’a,” and tact had prevailed. A hasty retreat to his 
quarters and he reappeared in the usual red fez. 

It took courage to start. For lack of any other ar- . 
chaeological prospects, she’d built up this village of 
Yar until, if it didn’t exactly gleam with ancient white 
marble palaces, it still held all her hopes. And fears too. 
Now it was within reach, even fairly easy reach. Sue 
May touched the folded envelope map of the Zaria 
surveyor in the breast pocket of her white silk shirt. 
Supposing, after all, there was nothing there ? She felt 
her pace slackening until Audu’s footsteps behind on 
the dusty road were overtaking her. 

“No, Sue May,” she told herself, “if you’re ever going 
to be an archaeologist you must learn to face defeat 
as well as success. If Yar is a washout, the sooner you 
know it, the sooner you’ll get on to something else.” 
She settled her sunhelmet firmly and stepped out with 
quickening stride. 

She became aware of shuffling feet and voices in the 


I2 7 


SUNHELMET SUE 


rear. She glanced back to make sure that her load was 
following, and chuckled. Audu as usual had exceeded 
expectations, adding a little refinement of his own to 
her plans. Needless to have worried about his being 
overladen; somewhere, quite close to the resthouse he 
must have picked up those two small boys, even smaller 
than himself. Each was nearly naked, each bore atop 
his thick-skulled little head one of Audu’s chop-box 
loads . . . and moreover beamed at the honor. Ahead 
of the little safari gloriously unencumbered, strode 
Audu. 

Half an hour of plain, straightforward marching. 
Then giant granite rocks, like spilled lumps from a 
giant sugar bowl, and studded green, pasture-like fields. 
The ground rose slowly ahead, trees became more 
stunted, with poorer soil. No signs of cultivation, no 
signs of natives, even the path showed no recent foot¬ 
prints. Someone to act as guide, or merely to tell her 
she was on the right track would have been reassuring. 
Then the trail took it into, its head to fork. Sue May 
consulted the penciled map and the sun. 

Yar should be due west. One fork ran northwest, 
the other southwest. What about Audu’s small carriers ? 
They must know Yar if they lived around here. Sue 
May halted for them to come up and went into con¬ 
sultation. 

But they wouldn’t, or couldn’t say. Sue May’s 
Haussa and Audu’s grasp of their own particular 
tongue were together unequal to the task. Thrown 


128 


ON THE TRAIL OF YAR 

back on her own judgment she chose the northwest 
fork. Twenty minutes of dusty travel and it swung 
north, even perhaps a bit northeast. Sue May groaned. 
That meant going back. She retraced her steps. The 
safari followed unconcernedly. 

As the sun grew hotter she swung her thoughts more 
and more to Yar. The theory of the Governor’s that 
several tribal migrations had reached Yar and then 
split up, and in the course of centuries formed several 
tribes, had, she knew by now, definite basis in fact. 
Tribal traditions, as she had gathered from Professor 
Dering’s notes, pointed to it—oh hang, this track was 
growing fainter!—but, even better testimony than mere 
legend was the languages of the tribes. 

Unable to dig in Yar itself she had been excavating 
through those notes of the Professor’s, and even the 
transcribing of vocabularies had yielded some slight 
clues. Root words, such as mother and father, water 
and fire were practically identical among a certain 
group of wide-spread tribes. This surely indicated that 
they had once been one. Thus, among Aryan languages 
you got mutter, mother, mater and the French mere . 
And father, vater, pater, and again the French con¬ 
traction pere. On the other hand among these tribes, 
new words like tobacco, which, widespread as it was, 
was comparatively alien to Africa, and also the big 
white humped-back cattle, “shanu” in Haussa, were 
called by a different name in each tribe. The little 
humpless cow of the hills, called “muturu” obviously 


/29 


SUNHELMET SUE 


hadn’t been known to the original people either, but 
must have been introduced before the tribes were as 
widely spread as they were now, for quite a number of 
them had the same name for it. 

A low bough smote her helmet and she glanced up. 
The path still lead ahead, faintly, but by the way thorn 
trees were closing over, it was nothing more than a 
game trail. Yar, it was true, had been “surrounded by 
thorn trees,” but soon sharp thorns tore at her legs, 
grasped at her hands and even if she could possibly 
manage to wriggle through there was no chance for 
Audu’s little carriers to follow with their headloads. 
Duiker and oribi and other small deer might go this 
way to Yar, but she was barred by a fence of spikes. 

Defeat number two! 

It was Audu who suggested lunch. A good idea, 
it would at least postpone retreat. And in the mean¬ 
time some native might bob up from the bush and say, 
“Good morning! You want to go to Yar? This way, 
Madam!” 

Sandwiches and warm lemonade were heartening. 
But no miracle happened, no helpful native appeared. 
She might as well pack up and call it a day. Audu and 
his satellites saw nothing extraordinary in this; after 
all if the whitewoman chose to walk several weary 
miles in order to lunch uncomfortably in the bush and 
return, it was no funnier than the other things white 
folk did; collecting stones and useless words and ask- 


ON THE TRAIL OF YAR 


ing questions to which anyone with sense already 
knew the answer! 

Something within Sue May refused to accept such 
obvious defeat. About twenty minutes back along the 
trail a thin fork led off to the right; that was going 
due south and directly away from the hypothetical 
Yar. Still it wasn’t going home, so she took it. 

The track widened, grew more distinct. It must be 
a hunters’ trail since there were no farms around. A 
broken piece of pottery beside the path. She picked it 
up. Modern stuff, by the sharp edges of its fracture, 
just red earthenware. A little further and a field of 
corn. Come, this was encouraging! If there was a 
village here there’d be a guide to Yar. 

A goat, balanced on its hind legs tearing leaves from 
a bush, the sound of hens somewhere in the distance. 
Thorn trees had fallen behind, the ground was rising 
sharply. All the better because all the oldest villages 
were built on hilltops for defence. More tiny farms 
and a patch of tobacco, which meant by all the rules 
that she was on the very outskirts of habitation. Pouff, 
it was a hard, hot climb! Rocks and still higher ground 
lay ahead with jagged boulders, large as houses, cut¬ 
ting out the view. 

A bobbing head, the swish of leaf skirts and a yelp 
of dismay. A woman had seen Sue May, and bolted. 

A sharp cleft between the rocks, the gold of newly 
thatched roofs, and she had come out into a little cup 


SUNHELMET SUE 


in the hills. There lay the village, its outer huts with 
mud walls touching mud walls, as tightly as the cells 
of a wasps’ nest. Within they seemed less closely spaced, 
low mud huts dotted along worn narrow paths. More 
like a fortress than any of the open, hospitable villages 
she’d seen in the plains. 

The only opening seemed a circular window-like 
door, high up in the wall of one of the huts. Sue May 
cautiously squeezed through. Dark after the blaze 
without. Then into sunlight again and an open space. 

Hurray! She could smile, wave her arms, make 
gestures, wait for Audu, then gather together the El¬ 
ders of the village and find out all she wanted to know. 

Already people were running out of their huts. Per¬ 
haps they hadn’t seen her, for they all seemed to be 
going in the opposite direction. But if so, why in such 
a hurry ? Then the meaning of this buzz, as of fright¬ 
ened bees, dawned on Sue May. 

When Audu arrived she was sitting on an upturned 
wooden mortar doing her best not to laugh. Nor, 
exactly, to cry. 

“Sun gudu. Sun gudu du\a. They’ve run away! 
Everyone!” 

The sweep of her arm indicated a village, completely 
silent and deserted. 



Chapter Eleven 

TO YAR BY A SHOOT-THE-CHUTE 

T his was ridiculous. Not what one expected of 
the “savage” tribes of Africa. Here she was, with 
three small native boys, quite alone and unarmed, and 
the entire village had bolted as though they had seen 
a hippogriff. And by the way, what was a hippogriff ? 

Sue May giggled and felt better. There must be some 
way to capture a guide to Yar. She got up to look for 
one. 

For the next half hour it was a game of hide-and- 
seek between Sue May and the villagers. She’d pop 


*33 











SUNHELMET SUE 

round the corner of a hut to hear a stone slide beneath 
a bare foot, see a shadow slip ahead of her, hear the 
rustle of a leaf skirt, but find nobody there. She 
shouted and waved her arms encouragingly at a head 
that appeared for an instant above a boulder. The 
head dropped and was seen no more. Audu, calling 
reassurance in a piping boyish treble, tried Haussa, 
tried several other tongues, but all to no effect. Hot, 
exhausted and discouraged Sue May sank on an up¬ 
turned calabash and chin in hand considered what to 
do. 

Obviously nothing, in the village. What if any¬ 
thing lay beyond it ? “Come on.” She jerked her head 
at her small safari, “We’ll take a look at the back door.” 

Obediently they picked up their loads and followed. 
But the back door, when found, was certainly puzzling. 
Well-worn tracks led from huts and the mud thresh¬ 
ing floor upward, out of a hollow, and there they 
stopped. With good reason. Beyond lay the bluish, 
distant horizon, further in, treetops and the plain be¬ 
low like patches of green moss on a yellow wall, and 
just at her feet as she stood and gazed, a smooth grey 
slope of unbroken granite like the roof of a house seen 
from the ridgepole. 

Nothing less than a human fly could walk down 
there. Audu drew up alongside and joined in the 
gaping. His two followers downed loads once more 
and opened their mouths, perplexedly scratching one 
ankle against the other. 


*34 


TO YAR BY A SHOOT-THE-CHUTE 

The smooth, even slope was simply asking to have 
something rolled down it. Sue May looked round for a 
smooth pebble, but generations of small children must 
have had the same idea for no stone of liftable size 
was within reach. A round cracker then . . . but only 
crumbs remained in the lunch box, nor was there any¬ 
thing else she felt she could spare. There must be some¬ 
thing. Then her eye caught the bag of coins, small 
coins at that, a tenth of a penny apiece and each about 
the size of a nickel. That was an idea. 

She scooped up two cents worth, poised the first on 
the edge and sent it spinning down into the sunlight. 
At least if this village would give her no information 
she’d have a good game out of it. 

The coin rolled, bounced and vanished into the 
distance. Two more, and each one she traced a little 
further on its course. What lay at the bottom there? 

And now she’d made a fresh discovery. The course 
those tenth-of-pennies followed was smoother, far 
smoother than the surrounding surface. By moving to 
one side she could catch the glint of the sun on it. It 
was darker too, either from polishing, or somehow 
greasy. O—o, was she getting an idea? 

If the path continued down this polished streak, yet 
people couldn’t walk on it, then what?—did they roll, 
or slide ? Rolling would be too bumpy and painful,— 
so they slid! 

And thousands of people over hundreds, perhaps 
thousands of years had given this glassy polish to the 


*35 


SUNHELMET SUE 


village backstairs or emergency exit. What man has 
done, woman can do. Sue May hoiked up her jodh¬ 
purs and sat down. 

A rush of bare feet. Sue May stopped herself just 
in time. What was happening now ? 

Four children of the village, naked of anything but 
grins, had rushed out, each with a small strip of some 
kind of heavy matting. With a plop the first to arrive 
dropped upon his toboggan, made signs of shoving 
himself off the edge, then leaped to his feet and handed 
the mat to the Baturia. A-ha, so that was it! 

It felt stiff one way but flexible the other as she 
settled herself upon it and gripped her fingers into the 
edge. Exciting. Like a Luna Park shoot-the-chutes. 
A scoop of her heels, an exultant yelp and she was off 
in a rush. 

Hastily she tucked her heels onto the mat in front 
of her. Picking up speed now. Supposing she began 
to spin! Wouldn’t do to think of that. A rush of air 
past her ears, whistling beneath the brim of her helmet. 
Her helmet tugged at the chin strap, her shirt whipped 
tight to her body. 

Yells behind. The three small boys, scared perhaps of 
being left alone had taken courage in both hands and 
followed, fortunately—she turned her head—yes, even 
with the boxes safe in front of them on the mats. 

Swifter and swifter. She had a momentary wish that 
she had known where she was going to land. This 
couldn’t go on forever,—ouch, that elevator feeling she 

1 36 


TO YAR BY A SHOOT-THE-CHUTE 

always got when the parachute opened. Losing speed 
with a jerk that almost shot her off her seat. 

Then she was sitting once more in motionless Afri¬ 
can surroundings and gulping to clear her ear passages. 
A swish behind her. Hastily she jumped to her feet 
and grabbed her mat. 

Audu, gathering together remnants of mat and dig¬ 
nity leapt to his feet as— swoosh, box number one and 
porter number one arrived. Swoosh —came another. 
Then—it looked as though the skies were raining 
villagers. Whooping they came. Not only the four 
boys who had so kindly provided mats, but others, 
young and old, boys, girls and Elders in one grand 
avalanche of yelling, waving arms and legs, pell mell 
down the cellar door of the village. One even vain- 
gloriously standing on his mat, like a ski jumper. 

For just an instant Sue May felt a touch of panic. 
But no, this must be the traditional village amusement. 
She herself had been nothing more than a pebble 
touching off a landslide. The villagers, upright on 
their feet were looking at Sue May, looking at each 
other. Now that they were all together how did they 
feel about her? 

Sue May produced a wavering grin, a woman caught 
her eye and chuckled sheepishly, as though ashamed 
to find this not a hippogriff at all. Someone produced 
a loud guffaw and slapped a bare brown knee. It was 
as infectious as the landslide and instantly the whole 
collected village was roaring with laughter as this huge 


i37 


SUNHELMET SUE 


joke on themselves. The white person from whom 
they had fled in fear had tempted them down their 
own toboggan slide. Ha ha, ho ho ho! She wasn’t 
anybody to be afraid of. He, he he! Oh dear, oh dear! 
Sue May mopped at streaming eyes with her handker¬ 
chief and relaxed on a chop-box. Oh . . . ouf, she 
hadn’t laughed so much since she came to Africa, not 
since she got caught under the parachute way back 
home. 

Well, that was that. And now what? Two Elders 
had retrieved their dignity and were in argument over 
something. They drew another into the discussion, 
pointed at Sue May, then addressed her directly. 

Audu translated into halting Haussa, “From long 
ago has been dispute among these people. Now that a 
white person has come, and moreover one of great 
understanding . . .” 

Sue May caught the drift. But this was a job for 
the English District Officer. Furthermore she wanted 
to get to Yar. 

“They say,” Audu translated the reply, “not for five 
seasons has the whiteman come to these parts. And 
how can they know, without seeing him, that the 
whiteman is one of understanding?” 

Good heavens, did shooting-the-chutes qualify one 
as a judge? Oh well!—she let herself, chop-boxes and 
attendants be ushered down onto level farmland and 
onto the lower threshing floor, where they were estab¬ 
lished beneath the welcome shade of a large tree. Here 

is* 



_A o[ air past Her ears 
Whistling beneath her helmetr 











































































TO YAR BY A SHOOT-THE-CHUTE 

she sat down again and took out paper and pencil, a 
good move, manifestly approved by the court as¬ 
sembled. 

“Behold . . .” Behold a tree grew upon the land 
owned by . . . but the tree itself was owned by . . . 
who leased its fruit to . . . 

It was complicated even from the beginning. For 
as soon as that witness had finished another sought to 
prove that the tree in question was not of the kind 
which could be owned apart from the land on which 
it stood. Sue May knew that there were trees that 
could be so owned—and that it certainly possessed no 
fruit that could be rented out. 

The next witness cast doubts upon who was actually 
the owner of the land, the following man gave a long, 
genealogical table to prove that, although the land on 
which stood the tree had been cultivated by . . . , yet 
this was only by permission of the true owner who had 
inherited it from his paternal uncle. That, one sup¬ 
posed, involved all this complicated business of mater¬ 
nal uncle-to-nephew inheritance, instead of the plain 
father-to-son. And to get at that she’d have to dig into 
the whole customs of the village, perhaps the tribe. 

Sue May held her spinning head in her hands and 
desperately searched the faces before her for inspira¬ 
tion. She hadn’t time for all this, she wanted to get 
to Yar, and this complicated case would take, surely, 
a week, even for a skilled arbitrator, who knew where 
to shortcut. 


141 


SUNHELMET SUE 

More witnesses. The tree in due course had blown 
down, part of it falling upon the field of yet another 
claimant. When dead, could it, or could it not, be the 
subject of ownership apart from the land on which it 
stood or lay? Sue May got more and more frantic. 
In all this tangle of words it would be refreshing to see 
something concrete, something to which she could tie 
her decision—the tree itself for instance. It was when 
they began to send away for more witnesses, an old 
man, who had once borne testimony, but was now too 
old to appear but would be brought, and others and 
others, that she jumped to her feet. 

“Show me, then, this tree,” she commanded. 

“The tree,” said an Elder, passing on Audu’s trans¬ 
lated command. 

“The tree?” said another, a little doubtfully. Sue 
May caught the same word, changing its inflexion, 
acquiring a note of interrogation. Then the assembled 
court fell silent. 

“Well?” said Sue May, still waiting. 

“Well?” said Audu, or words to that effect. 

“H . . . rump,” said the first Elder, clearing his 
throat, and began to explain further. Sue May, hav¬ 
ing had enough of words, was firm. 

“Take me to the tree.” 

Audu begged leave of the court to explain. “This 
matter is one of tuni-tuni —of long, long ago. It is for 
this reason that it is of such great importance. But the 
happenings, even to the blowing down of the tree, 


142 


TO YAR BY A SHOOT-THE-CHUTE 


were before the birth of even this Elder’s grandfather. 
Wherefore it is regretted that the wood of the tree has 
long since been burnt, and none can point even to 
where the tree once stood.” 

“Omigosh!” said Sue May, and choked. 

“Since then, the tree is long since dead,” she said 
for Audu’s translation, “and its spirit has joined the 
spirits of the Ancestors, who are we lesser ones below 
that we shall place fingers on such matters ? Doubtless 
the spirit of the true owner now possesses the spirit of 
the tree.” 

“Ah!” said the Elder in the tone of one relieved from 
a great problem. 

Sue May sat down again. Perhaps now that was 
settled and she could get to the thing she wanted to 
know. On which road lay the traditional village of 
Yar? 


Chapter Twelve 

LONG AGO A GREAT CITY 

S he could see now why she hadn’t got to Yar with¬ 
out a guide. There wouldn’t have been a hope of 
it if sheer luck hadn’t led her to this village. The 
village itself was like a gate in the thorn fence, while 
behind the huts lay mile after mile of farmland which 
must, at some time, have been hewn out of these vicious 
grey spikes and granite boulders. 

Soon the country began to rise again. Farmland 
ended and a narrow path stretched ahead between 
more thorn trees—metallic, grey, dead looking things 
interlaced as tightly as a hedge. Perhaps at some time 
of the year there were leaves, but now it was like a 
dump of tons and tons of hopelessly tangled barbed 
wire. Before her strode two of the Elders, self con¬ 
stituted guides, though obviously puzzled as to why 
the Baturia should want to go to Yar. No one lived 
there now, it had been deserted before the memory 
of the oldest Elder’s oldest ancestor. 

Behind followed Audu and the infant class, still 
carrying the chop-boxes. 

Sue May plodded doggedly. Not so much tired now 


*44 


LONG AGO A GREAT CITY 

as hot and hungry. No breath of air crept between 
these grey piled boulders, no spot of green was in sight 
and it had been a long time since her early lunch. 
She’d give a lot for something cool and liquid, but 
she didn’t like to finish off the water in the water 
bottle, not knowing what lay ahead. 

She had tried, through Audu, to add to her scant 
knowledge of Yar. 

“Kufai ne” was the scant information he passed on 
to her. “It is a place deserted.” 

It was old, very old, admitted one Elder. No one 
ever went there, said another. Once the dwelling of 
the Ancestors when the tribe had been large, very large 
indeed. 

“The Ancestors of this village only?” asked Sue 
May, dodging a thorn branch and trying to keep her 
mind off heat and hunger. 

“Oh no,” one of them admitted. “The Ancestors of 
all the tribes, of all the world indeed, came from Yar.” 

That,—making an anthropologist’s cautious cor¬ 
rection—was confirmation of the theory that a large 
wave of migration, or confederacy of tribes, had split 
up from Yar. Sue May felt less hot for a moment. 

Rocks again. A narrow cleft, barely the width of a 
man, and twenty or thirty feet high. 

The gates of Yar, she was told. In the old days these 
rocks would close of their own accord at sunset and 
open again only at dawn. And this was the only way 
to the ancient city. 


SUNHELMET SUE 


That legend, thought Sue May, would take Profes¬ 
sor Dering to disentangle. Did it mean that once there 
had been a gate here, which the guards had closed at 
night? Or was it a rationalized version of a series of 
earthquakes that for a time had closed this gap and 
later allowed it to open again? 

A sound. Water, trickling water. A hut, tiny and 
ridiculously isolated by the side of the trail and in its 
doorway crouched an old woman. By the side of this 
a five foot waterfall poured down through the rocks. 
Her guides were already scrambling for drinks. Audu, 
more ceremonious, spoke to the old woman who 
popped back into her hut and returned with a bowl. 
This water ought to be safe to drink. It seemed to 
come from a spring high up in the rocks, but Sue 
May thought it wisest to enquire. 

No, there were no houses beyond; only \ufai (de¬ 
serted site), and Audu was back with a brimming bowl. 
Sue May sipped, drank deep of the deliciously cool 
contents, drank again and filled her water bottle, 
splashed face and wrists. Then her attention was 
caught by the bowl. It was thin as a calabash, but too 
heavy for that light, nut-shell-like material, and black. 

Pottery? They didn’t make pottery like that around 
here. She tapped it with a finger nail. It responded 
with the clear thin note of unflawed china. There 
were some scratches on the fragile base but no other 
ornament of any sort. So uniform that it had surely 
been thrown on a wheel, but so smooth and polished 

146 


LONG AGO A GREAT CITY 

that there were no lines to prove it, and anyway the 
potter’s wheel hadn’t penetrated to this part of Africa. 
The old woman had been talking to the Elders for 



some time. “She says,” reported Audu, “that if you 
wish it, the bowl is yours.” 

“But where . . . what?” For the moment Sue May 
almost forgot about Yar itself. 

Audu straightened out her incoherent question, 
speaking, not to the woman but to the Elders, who 
in turn translated to the woman. Back, after a pause, 
came the reply. “She says at one time many. But now 
only a few upon the Three Hills.” 


H7 









SUNHELMET SUE 

Three Hills. There were three hills marked as the 
site of Yar on the Surveyor’s map in her pocket. That 
meant that at Yar there was pottery, some evidence 
of the former city. What lovely stuff too. Sue May 
ran her fingers caressingly over its smooth texture. If 
there was this on the surface, what might not lie be¬ 
neath the silt of centuries! 

But she must make some return for the gift, some¬ 
thing this old crone would value. There was so little 
choice. Her watch? . . . That would be wasted, and 
she wore no rings. But what about the bakelite Wool- 
worth bracelet on her wrist, wide, covered with ap¬ 
parent carving and of a lovely lush red. Sue May had 
worn it because of the color, and catching the woman’s 
eye upon it slipped it over her hand. It was difficult 
to make the woman believe it was really hers; and the 
bowl was carefully wrapped in many pages of the 
Times , the procession on its way again towards Yar 
before she had finished protesting at the too great 
value of the gift. 

Sue May didn’t exactly run; she mustn’t outpace 
her guides. An open glade of close cropped grass. And 
now the thorns drew back reluctantly from two gently 
rising domes of granite like “unbaked pancakes,” one 
on either side of the path. Between them, and ahead, 
rose the third. 

Yar, surely. It could be nothing else. 

“Yar,” confirmed one of the Elders with a gesture, 

148 


LONG AGO A GREAT CITY 

as though echoing her thoughts. They halted for in¬ 
structions. 

“Before the first pic\ point touches the ground an 
archaeologist should exhaust the possibilities of a 
thorough reconnaisance of the terrain,” quoted Sue May 
to herself. There didn’t seem any choice between these 
three hills, she took the one on the right and led the 
ascent. It was easy going, just a convex curve of granite 
with pits here and there on its surface such as you 
found near any hilltop village, where countless women 
had ground corn or pounded the fruit of the \u\a, or 
the doruwa tree with which they seasoned their foods. 
Potsherds galore, but only one small fragment of this 
black kind, the rest all thick brown earthenware such 
as was found everywhere. Of course there wouldn’t 
be any marble towers, any great monuments, inscribed 
obelisks, Sue May reminded herself. But all the 
same . . . 

The flat summit of the rounded hill showed only 
the two other flat summits, they might have been trip¬ 
lets. If people had ground the corn around here, then 
the village huts must have been built actually on these 
three giant mushrooms. But long ago thatching and 
rafter had decayed, the mud of the walls had dried 
and flown away. There was unworked building stone 
scattered about, just pieces of odd rock which had once 
been distributed through the mud walls. Sue May, 
standing on top of the hill and gazing about her 


1 49 


SUNHELMET SUE 


could even imagine that those nearest her formed pat¬ 
terns and had once been the outlines of the huts. But 
distributed throughout the whole three hills these odd 
remnants looked nothing more than grains of sugar 
on three doughnuts. 

Wasn’t there anything, anything at all to be seen? 
Was this all there was to her trip to Yar? 

Nothing but three round hills, tightly enfolded in 
thorn trees, grey, secret and uninteresting as the granite 
itself. And over their tops the grey blue haze of the 
horizon. 

She gazed back at her boxes of tools, brought so 
hopefully this morning. The chief Elder was speaking 
and Audu relayed the words. 

<( Tuni-tuni, long long ago a great city. But now— 
nothing.” 

Sue May found it difficult not to slump down on the 
scorching rock and burst into tears. 


750 


Chapter Thirteen 

ANOTHER ARCHAEOLOGICAL TIP 

Zaria, July 15th. 


defeated archaeologist places typewriter on chop- 



il box and addresses you. 

You’ve heard, Karl dear, all about Yar and what 
Yar was agoin’ to do for me and The Career. Well, it 
just wasn’t, that’s all. Three granite blisters and a thorn 
brake that’d keep out an armoured armadillo. Let’s 
forget the place. I mean to. 

Total results of one trip to Africa and all my plans 
to date; one piece of black pottery. Not found in 
situ so most of its sense missing, like a word taken out 
of its context. Professor Dering, bless his whiskers, 
being a perfect lamb about same black bowl and is 
having it packed in kapok from a local silk cotton tree 
and forwarded down to the Governor. With, if you 
please, my compliments. He guesses ... I must have 
babbled a lot coming back . . . what a disappoint¬ 
ment Yar was. Or perhaps he really is a little excited 
over the bowl for it’s certainly a new type of pottery 
to him. But then of course his knowledge of pottery, 
a huge subject, is limited to native ware of the present 
day. 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Well, I’ll drop the bowl. Metaphorically, I mean, 
before I start building up hopes on it and get another 
sock in the jaw. I’ve just got to learn to take it in 
this business. 

As you see, we’re back in Zaria, your little sister feel¬ 
ing quite the seasoned sandal, as the native calls the 
itinerant trader. 

—Ten minutes intermission to settle dispute over 
whether two large flatirons shall or shall not be packed 
with Missus’ pet teapot. Back again, nobody killed, 
nobody injured, even teapot saved for a little longer 
life. For you see we are always packing and refine¬ 
ments such as not letting the heavy iron teakettle 
rattle loose among the crockery, or the kerosene among 
the flour and sugar are looked upon as absurd whims 
of the whiteman. After all, if you’re a healthy being, 
why worry about a kerosene flavoring in everything you 
eat ? And if the flatiron runs amok and pounds the din¬ 
ner set to pieces, why ’tis the will of Allah. 

We’re off for Katsina in the morning, which you’ll 
see if you look it up on a map, is close to the desert. 
I’m quite excited over my first taste of desert life, of 
veiled Tuaregs, of camel trains and of a town which 
they say is more picturesque than Timbuctu; with an 
Emir, and great gates and walls and a market marvel¬ 
ous to see. 

But I want to tell you about my old friend Garuba 
Jos. He was actually waiting to greet us on arrival 
here at the resthouse. Of course he knew all about us, 


I 5 2 


ANOTHER ARCHAEOLOGICAL TIP 

where we’d been and what we’d been doing, even to 
the Yar debacle. For regular old gossips you can’t 
beat Haussa traders. With him was another grandson, 
smaller than Audu, a sort of cousin I gather and I’ve 
an idea, in training as servant for another unsuspect¬ 
ing white woman. I accused granddad Garuba of this 
and he just grinned. Regular old employment agency 
for grandsons, he is. But you should have seen Audu, 
strutting like a sophomore before the freshman class! 
He has presented the young cousin with one torn dress 
shirt, once the property of Professor Dering, by way of 
setting him up in his new profession. 

Of course Garuba knew that we were off soon for 
Katsina, that was easy to find out since we’d sent for 
carriers for tomorrow’s loads. And this morning when 
I made an occasion to visit the market again he in¬ 
vited me into his stall where I sat on a priceless old 
Persian rug, sipped some excellent shayi —tea to you, 
sir!—and exchanged gossip with the old boy. Either 
my Haussa is vastly improved or he’s getting better at 
thought reading; with gestures and a word of English 
now and then we got along without a hitch. 

Garuba, being Haussa, thoroughly approves of our 
going to one of the great northern Emirates. To him 
the people of the south, and even of this great middle 
belt are fair victims for his trading operations, as I 
was over the brass rhino, but otherwise scarcely human. 

“Before the coming of the whiteman” he tells me, 
“all wisdom was from the north, from the Bahr el 


J 53 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Malia, the Mediterranean. As a goat is penned during 
harvest time, so, by the wisdom of Allah, were the 
people of the south fenced between sea and forest.” 
And much more of this local Rotarian-boosting of his 
native north. But I guess he’s right at that. Katsina 
used to be the main route for camel caravans bringing 
down salt from the desert and taking back hides and 
corn. Then a too-greedy Emir of Katsina took to 
butchering the caravans instead of merely robbing 
them, and the trade swung across to the rival city of 
Kano. The moral, my lad, being ... oh something 
about the golden goose’s egg, isn’t it? 

Of course I’m thrilled to the back teeth with all this 
talk of camel caravans, bells a-tinkle, like animated 
Christmas cards. And of tall towers and gates thirty 
feet thick and walls ten times the height of man and 
the palm trees and all that. But I’m still more excited 
over something else Garuba told me. And now watch 
Little Sunhelmet Sue, the Infant Archaeologist of 
America, revoking her vow not to get thrilled again 
over any more buried cities and whatnots! I guess my 
head, though bloody, is still unbowed! 

Well, to relate a long story; before there was any 
real trade route through the Katsina district, long be¬ 
fore the first white explorers crossed the desert, long, 
long before the legendary Queen Amina and her twin 
sister, the Amazonian warrior, built Katsina and Zaria, 
longer still before the Mohammedan conquest, people 
were already sweeping down from the north, driven 


x 54 


ANOTHER ARCHAEOLOGICAL TIP 

south by the increasing drying up of the Sahara. This, 
before the early iron age, in neolothic and palaeolithic 
times, cut deeper and deeper into the forest belt of the 
south. . . . 

And by the way, young fella, did you know they’d 
had no bronze age here? Fact! 

Some day perhaps we’ll get up to, and examine the 
north-east to south-west route of migration, which 
broke against Yar and dispersed. But at the moment 
we re off to investigate the north-west to south-east 
route which passed through Katsina. And here’s my 
story. (Fingers crossed and hoping it doesn’t turn out 
just another Yar washout.) 

A trading friend of Garuba’s was following this 
same, age-old route, with an unusually large string of 
camels, down through a place called Ruma. That’s 
northwest of Katsina. Something happened, maybe 
some camels went lame, I don’t know. Night ap¬ 
proached apace, and there was a heavy tropical down¬ 
pour. No village. But somebody in the caravan had 
heard from somebody who’d heard from somebody 
else that there was some sort of shelter here among the 
rocks. Of course in the last generation or two anything 
might have happened to it, but as the rock around 
here is granite that seemed unlikely. Garuba says they 
did find the cave, lit fires and spent the night there. 
Garuba’s friend, the leader of the caravan, found that 
the further he penetrated the warmer it was. With 
the bright light from several hurricane lamps, the first 


I 5S 



SUNHELMET SUE 


the old cave had ever known, he saw carvings on the 
walls! Not, I gather, sculptured reliefs, though Garuba 
can’t say, but probably outlines filled in with black 
and white. 

Wild beasts, they were. And some of them repre¬ 
sentations of men ... to the horror of the strict Mo¬ 
hammedan. 

You can imagine that at about this stage of the tale 
I began to bounce up and down on my Persian carpet 
and demand: “What sort of men? What sort of ani¬ 
mals?” 

Garuba displayed well-bred astonishment. His point 
was that if I wanted to dig for buried treasure the cave 
was just the place. A sort of bandit hang-out, like 
Ali Baba’s cozy little glory hole. 

Whereat I interrupted again. How did I get there? 
Could he let me have the name of the trader for guide ? 
How far was it from Ruma and in what direction? 
And how far was Ruma from Katsina? 

Well, he’s sworn to do his best for me, and as Audu 
is a fair example of his best along other lines, I feel 
we may pull it off. But it all depends on whether we 
get hold of this friend of his. Garuba hasn’t seen him 
for a year but is hopefully expecting him to turn up at 
any time. You can guess the awful dither I’m in. 
After Yar I won’t bank on a darned thing and of course 
I don’t believe a word of this story! But still . . . 
and after the failure of Yar, I feel I should leave no 
stone implement unturned. 


ANOTHER ARCHAEOLOGICAL TIP 

. . . Loud crashes from kitchen. Not ... I hope, 
the last of Mrs. Dering’s lovely blue casseroles. I fly 

. . . I fly . . . 

Which reminds me. Ten thousand congratulations 
on the success of the C 37, and many thanks for the 
copy of the contract. It looks as though we might 
begin to bank our money instead of pulling it out in 
handfuls, doesn’t it? Oh we’ll yet own two pairs of 
shoes apiece! 

A kiss on Dad’s old bald spot. If you dare. 

Your Sunhelmet Sue, the Child Explorer. 

D’you remember our Mrs. Fish, of the trip over? Well, 
she’s buzzin’ round Zaria, too too thrilled over the 
dear natives, planning a book on My Bright Days in 
Africa, and a lecture tour on The Footsteps of Stanley 
and Livingstone. Nobody’s had the heart to tell her 
they passed some thousand or two miles to the south 
of Nigeria. She makes me feel about ninety, but I kind 
of like her at that. 


7 57 


Chapter Fourteen 

EVIL SPIRITS 

I ’m sorry, Sue May, but you really will have to fire 
him. In the two weeks since we’ve been in Kat- 
sina ...” 

Sue May wasn’t listening. For the hundredth time 
in West Africa, she was envying Mrs. Dering’s cool 
freshness in all this heat. Her sheer green voile was as 
crisp as new lettuce, every blonde curl was immacu¬ 
lately in place and a spotless white sandal dangled from 
one pretty bare foot. Already, at the breakfast table, 
Sue May felt as limp as boiled spinach, her hair in such 
tight little curls across her hot forehead that she had 
half a mind to emulate Audu’s shaven poll. 

“Oh,” she jerked herself back to attention. “Oh, 
I’m sorry. Who is it that you want me to fire?” 

“The garden boy. Maigona, isn’t it? Really he’s 
quite impossible.” Maigona had refused to draw 
water from the well of the Dering’s house. Perhaps 
not actually refused, but he simply didn’t do it. In¬ 
stead, with countless lame excuses, he’d been deplet¬ 
ing the well of the neighboring resthouse, temporarily 
vacant. “And now, with those men flying down from 


EVIL SPIRITS 


Egypt, and going to live next door, we really must 
respect our neighbor’s property. If he can’t agree, 
he’ll have to go.” 

So there it was. Mrs. Dering, perfectly right and 
quite unshakable in her position; Maigona, perfectly 
wrong and equally unshakable. Might as well get 
this unpleasant business out of the way. Sue May 
shoved back her chair and picked up her sunhelmet 
from the verandah railing. “Tell Audu the execu¬ 
tioner will have another cup of coffee when she re¬ 
turns.” She marched off across the sun-drenched com¬ 
pound. 

The garden boy, followed by his pet goat was am¬ 
bling peacefully from tree to tree, brushing off the 
brown covered-ways built by termites the previous 
night. Katsina grew white ants if nothing else. Now 
for it . . . 

“Maigona, since you will not obey orders and draw 
from our well, we permit you to depart.” 

“To. Na ji!” Maigona looked hurt, but accepted 
his dismissal. His brown hands, a moment before so 
industriously brushing off the termite work, dropped 
emptily, pathetically, to his sides. 

“But why?” Sue May covered her sympathy with a 
show of anger, “Why won’t you use our well?” 

“No water,” affirmed Maigona definitely. 

“But there is water,” said Sue May. “If you throw 
in a stone you can hear it splash.” 

“Little water,” said Maigona. 


^59 


SUNHELMET SUE 


“Well, tomorrow is pay-day. You may work today 
and that is all.” Sue May whirled away angrily and 
marched back to the verandah. “The firing party’s 
over,” she announced and sat down to the coffee Audu 
had poured for her. “But,” she quirked a quizzical 
brow over the rim of her cup. “There’s more in this 
than meets the eye. I’d sort of like to know what 
it is. 

That same evening she had a chance to find out. 
Quite a little procession approached the verandah 
steps. Garden boy and goat silhouetted against the 
sunset, and behind, as though driving them on, a 
woman, or rather, a girl. Sue May knew her. She was 
one Laraba, affianced bride of Maigona; that is in 
native fashion he was slowly purchasing her with the 
bride price, paid out of his wages, to her father. As 
Laraba was late in her teens and so well past the usual 
age for African brides she was not at all an unwilling 
chattel. 

Sue May got up from her deck chair in the cooling 
compound. “Man’s work is from sun to sun,” she ex¬ 
cused herself to the amused Derings, “but a secretary’s 
work is never done. I’m in for it now I guess, with the 
whole family to face.” They assembled by the well. 
The bride-to-be came swiftly to the point. “He says,” 
she jerked a disdainful brown shoulder towards the 
apprehensive Maigona, “that he has disobeyed and is 
therefore dismissed. Now I say,” her tone included Sue 
May who would doubtless see eye to eye with her, “it 

/6o 


EVIL SPIRITS 


is better that he should obey and earn the money for 
my kjurdin aure? 

Sue May nodded. Quite reasonable. While Maigona 
shifted unhappily from foot to foot she explained the 
matter of the well. It was wrong that they should 
draw from a store of water not belonging to them. 

The bride-to-be rattled off a staccato question. 
Maigona hung his head and muttered something. 

“Aljannu. Evil spirits,” the girl explained. “He 
says that the well is haunted. Nonetheless, since it is 
your wish, he will draw water from it.” 

Sue May tried to smother a smile. Her wish? As 
though her wish had anything to do with this strong 
minded fiancee of his! Then she remembered; Mai¬ 
gona was fired, and you had to keep to your word with 
these people. Too late now. But it was a pity Laraba 
hadn’t intervened earlier. 

Laraba was practical enough to see the point. It 
looked as though negotiations had broken down and 
the delegates must go their way, when she produced 
an idea. “If the worthless one, my future husband 
can no longer be gardener, is it not true that the well 
is in need of someone to clean it?” 

Sue May saw Maigona shiver. Even his slow mind 
caught the drift. 

“And in that case, who better to do the digging 
than Maigona? The well is not a deep one, calling 
for special skill.” 

The procession turned towards the well in question. 

161 


SUNHELMET SUE 


It was dusk now, the water below eerily echoing back 
the sound of their voices, even the goat jibbed away, 
and Maigona could be neither persuaded nor shamed 
into further examination of the place before daylight. 
So it was postponed until the morrow. 

Of course that was the end of that. Maigona would 
appear only for his wages, a difficult problem would 
be solved, another garden boy hired and that would be 
all. But Sue May was wrong. 

Not long after cockcrow, which is just before six 
so near the Equator, Maigona appeared, under light 
but effective escort and apparently garbed for labor. 
Sue May, who was wandering in the garden hatless 
and enjoying the best part of the tropical day saw them 
arrive and joined them at the well-head. 

Laraba was making it clear that Maigona should 
descend. Maigona appeared to be pleading that there 
was cdjannu in the well, and, alternately, that the well 
didn’t need cleaning. 

Also that the well needed such thorough cleaning 
that only professional cleaners should do it! 

“Ba . . . a!” said the goat. 

“But,” pleaded Maigona, apparently in answer to 
the goat, “in a well so old, doubtless the footholds 
will be missing, I shall fall to the bottom and be 
drowned.” 

“Ba ... a!” said the goat. 

“It would indeed be necessary that one be let down 
by rope.” He picked up the light but tough rawhide 


162 


EVIL SPIRITS 


line which passed over the native-made pulley at the 
wellhead. “And that would require that other men be 
called.” 

Sue May, stifling her laughter, considered Maigona, 
herself and Laraba. Maigona was right of course; 
even working together the two girls could hardly 
lower him into the well. 

Laraba waxed impatient. “Then will 7 descend. 
That I myself may collect the bride price and marry 
one who is not afraid of a well in open daylight!” 

But the girl, plump and pretty, was almost as 
heavy as Maigona. Sue May saw her opportunity. 
“Wait here till I return,” she commanded, and in a 
moment was back with several objects. The depth of 
the water must be tested with cord and weight. That 
was easy. Six inches or so at the bottom of a twenty 
foot shaft. Next the problem of foul air such as, an 
archaeologist knew, laid traps for the unwary in wells 
and tombs. A lighted candle let down on the same 
rope that had been used for sounding answered that 
question. Four heads bent anxiously above the well¬ 
head, but the candle went out. What did an archae¬ 
ologist do now? Air pumps? But there weren’t any. 

Laraba had a system far more simple. In Sokoto, 
where she was born, where wells were very deep, 
deeper than the tallest house, the diggers poured sand, 
almost grain by grain, down one edge of the well. 
Sand? There was plenty of sand. While the garden 
boy was sent to bring headloads of it, Sue May con- 

i6 3 


SUNHELMET SUE 

sidered how this sand business could do the trick. 
Presumably the fine drizzle of grains down one side 
of the well forced the air down with it and so started 
a current that drove up the other side. In which case 
a lighted candle, hung as far down as it would burn 
on the opposite side, would help the updraft. 

It did work too. Slowly, as the sand dribbled in 
she found the candle could be lowered yet further 
down the narrow shaft, inch by inch, till, still burn¬ 
ing, it touched the water, sputtered and expired. The 
time had come to descend. 

Sue May grasped at a courage which, like the candle, 
had been slowly sinking. By the candlelight she had 
seen toeholds in the side of the well, but for reas¬ 
surance she would need a rope sling to sit in. Laraba 
protested; it was not fitting that the Baturia should 
descend. Maigona echoed her, feebly. Even the goat 
seemed to think well-descending a gesture unbecom¬ 
ing a white girl. 

Sue May left them protesting and stepped over the 
side. There was nothing left but for Laraba and 
Maigona to grasp the rope and hang on. 

Slowly, inch by inch they paid it out over the creak¬ 
ing pulley. Sue May’s groping tennis shoes found the 
second, the third, the fourth toehold. Shoulders 
against the opposite side and outstretched arms to 
steady her. Lucky that the well was a narrow one 
for her reach was small. Sand trickled down her 
sleeves, down the back of her neck, loose stones 


164 


EVIL SPIRITS 


splashed into the shallow water; good to remem¬ 
ber how shallow it was. The blue circle of sky re¬ 
ceding and the air growing cool and musty. It was 
horrid, you couldn’t blame Maigona for not want- 
ing to go down. 

Sue May glanced back at the three anxious peer¬ 
ing heads above her. ‘‘Continue to give rope,” she 
called up, and groped for another foothold. It would 
be better if she went straight to the bottom first, thus 
proving to Maigona that the well was harmless. Com¬ 
ing back towards daylight would be easier. 

It wasn’t much further before Sue May’s tennis 
shoes struck water, and then mud, not really oozy 
mud, just a mixture of sand and water and . . . her 
foot hit against something. She worked it upward 
with her toes. Only a cheap and rusty remnant of 
a whiteman’s kettle. Well anyway it wasn’t aljannu 
and that let her out, now she could return to the 
cheerful morning sunlight above. 

Ah, but what would an archaeologist do? Sue May, 
chilly water about her ankles admitted with chat¬ 
tering teeth that, apart from actual excavation, which 
could now be left to Maigona, here was a grand 
chance for a little elementary stratigraphy. 

“Send down a calabash,” she called to the helpers 
at the wellhead. She heard Laraba’s command to the 
garden boy, the silence and a short wait. 

Then Maigona’s voice in sharp argument. “But 
it is light and will it not break!” Good heavens, the 

1 65 


SUNHELMET SUE 


man was going to drop it on her! Shortly after¬ 
wards the calabash bowl scraped against the wellside, 
dangled within her reach. Next she sent for a kitchen 
knife. That too descended upon a string. 

To kill two birds with one stone, Sue May en¬ 
larged the toeholds with her knife and treated the soil 
as samples. Her own height gave her an estimate of 
the height of these samples, one above the other, and 
Maigona and Laraba, hauling industriously on the 
string were told to empty the earth samples one be¬ 
hind another in a row, starting from the wellhead. 

Except that the bottom had more granite in it, and 
higher up it grew more like a soft sandstone, the 
ground seemed much the same to the touch, and 
there wasn’t enough light to examine it carefully 
here. Slowly she worked her way up the side, for¬ 
getting, in this new interest, her cold and apprehen¬ 
sion. Laraba was proving an excellent foreman above, 
lowering and pulling exactly as directed. Sue May 
was more than halfway to the top, had her foot firmly 
in a toehold and was groping for the next above, 
when suddenly she was jerked violently against the 
rope sling, heard a clatter and a splash below her 
and found herself swinging in the air, her feet on 
nothing and her elbows badly scraped from the well- 
sides. 

Shouts from above. What had happened? Then 
the native girl’s anxious voice. “Are you there?” 

“Okay,” called back Sue May reassuringly. “I am 


166 



The native tftrljr aiwioas voice 
a^ke<T “Are you, tkeire ? 99 







































EVIL SPIRITS 

here.” And groped for the toehold again. There 
wasn’t any. That’s what had happened, her weight 
had loosened the niche, and sand and stones had 
clattered into the water. But if she appeared at the 
wellhead shaking like this it would scarcely reassure 
the timid Maipona. 

“Lower again,” she called back. She ought to re¬ 
turn and cut another foothold. Slowly the rope was 
paid out again, Sue May felt along the wall with her 
hand for the firmest place to dig with her knife. 
Something was hanging from the place where the 
niche had been, probably an old treeroot, and that’s 
what had loosened the earth. 

But it wasn’t a treeroot. Sue May gave a tug. It 
was knobbly and would stand investigating. And an 
archaeologist, my good gal, doesn’t tug! 

Then the empty calabash floated down to her. 
Knife in hand she began to scrape and ease away 
the soil around the puzzling string of knobs. At 
last it came loose, but here in the dusk you couldn’t 
guess what it was. Anyway, not another whiteman’s 
teakettle. 

Conscientiously she squared off the niche and cleaned 
out the next ones, then gave the order to be hauled 
to the top. 

“Except for meals,” Mrs. Dering on the verandah 
was pouring tea for the Katsina District Officer, “I 
haven’t seen the child all day. I don’t think she’s left 


SUNHELMET SUE 


the compound, but she’s just disappeared as though 
the ground had swallowed her.” 

“Well, it’s disgorged me again,” said Sue May, 
suddenly coming out in a clean white tennis frock. 
“Hello there, D.O. Sir! Sorry to be late for tea, but 
for a cool damp place on a tropical scorcher I can 
recommend your well, Mrs. Dering. And thank you, 
yes, the usual four lumps.” Sue May seated herself. 

“A somewhat original refuge, wells,” remarked the 
D.O. 

Sue May unrolled her handkerchief and displayed 
a necklace, some two feet long, of a blue smoky color 
beneath the soil which incrusted it, the large beads 
strung along a thin wire. “What,” she asked, “are 
these? Ancient? Modern? Native? Whiteman’s 
work, or what?” Oh if they could only prove to be 
something rare and valuable! Perhaps . . . dug up 
from the ground like that. . . . 

Mrs. Dering stroked the beads with long fingers 
and shook her fluffy head. “I haven’t any idea.” 

“Allow me,” the D.O. leaned forward in his chair. 
“Brass wire, probably native work, made from a beaten 
out coin perhaps.” He rubbed a bead with a dampened 
handkerchief, tried another, then shook his head and 
passed the string back to Sue May. “Afraid not, Miss 
Innis. You found them down the well? They’re 
European work, just glass. Been restrung out here 
of course, that’s why they stayed together, but other¬ 
wise just cheap market beads.” 


IJO 


EVIL SPIRITS 


“Period, early Woolworth,” Sue May tried to grin, 
but it was awfully disappointing. “We made another 
find too, but there’s no problem about its value; it’s 
worth exactly four shillings and sevenpence in tenths 
of pennies. The main point is, who it belongs to? 
It was lying, in small coins, in the mud at the bottom.” 

For a moment the District Officer was puzzled, then 
his face cleared. “Without being an anthropologist I 
think I can solve your problem for you. A former 
D.O. staying at this resthouse had cause to fire his 
servants for some wilful negligence, breakage I think. 
He took them out to the wellhead and for object 
lesson, to show them how they deliberately wasted 
money, tossed the exact sum of the breakage down 
the well.” 

“And now it’s up again who would you say it be¬ 
longed to?” asked Sue May. 

The D.O. chuckled, “I think I will transfer the case 
to my colleague of the bench, one who has been called 
the Little Judge.” 

“All right,” grinned Sue May. “I said it belonged 
to Maigona, the well cleaner.” 

Mrs. Dering queried this. Surely Maigona had 
been discharged ? 

“Oh yes, as garden boy. But he’s water boy now, 
with complete charge over the well and all the water 
from it. His girlfriend Laraba and I arranged that 
between us!” 


Chapter Fifteen 


THE HEROINE OF KATS1NA 

A nother of those oblong wooden cases, containing 
two sealed cans of gasoline, eight gallons in all, 
showed slightly discolored at the edges. Sue May 
bent over and sniffed. Yes, leaking. She hefted it 
by one end. Almost empty. 

Calling the red-robed native policeman, she or¬ 
dered the case to be set aside. The huge stack that 
still remained seemed enough for a transatlantic 
flight, but six heavy Army bombers would, she knew, 
simply drink it up. And there they stood, three in a 
line, wing tip to wing tip, and three in front of those; 
gorgeous machines glittering in the tropical sun, as 
spruce and trim as though they’d never left Egypt. 

Gosh it was exciting! You’d never expect anything 
like this, anything that was so much of Sue May’s 
own home background, out here in Africa. Their 
coming hadn’t seemed possible, even when Professor 
Dering had offered the D.O. the services of his sec¬ 
retary, who, he said “was something of an expert on 
planes,” for a last-minute check-over of the landing 
field. Sue May knew she was no expert but she’d 


THE HEROINE OF KATS1NA 

been able to make sure that the layout of the grounds 
took into account the prevailing wind and above all 
she’d persuaded them to loosen the surface where it 
was hard and shiny, and not to crop the grass too 
close. 

All this between keeping Maigona on his job of 
well-digging and reassuring him, at least twice a day 
that aljannu had not returned. 

What a thrill it had been this morning! Sue May 
had cycled out soon after dawn, with a borrowed pair 
of binoculars, sandwiches and water. But not before 
a few thousand natives had formed a circle about the 
field. She was glad of that; they defined the limits of 
the landing ground, dark faces and festive white rigas 
almost like a black-and-white painted outline on the 
dark red soil. Just as the residents of Katsina arrived 
in cars and on horseback six spots appeared on the 
north-eastern horizon, grew to droning insects, to 
birds, then open cockpit twin-engine bombers. Not 
the last word in planes, but to Sue May it was like 
home, coming out to greet her. She wanted to rush 
right forward and pat each plane, sentimentally, as 
it landed! And as it was, she was milling around the 
stationary planes among the horde of excited natives 
when she should have been present among the white 
people at the official reception. 

Lunch, afterwards, at the District Officer’s had been 
fun too; next to her at table had been a flight sergeant 
to whom his lunch partner had talked polo and 


SUNHELMET SUE 


horses. With relief the poor young man had turned 
to Sue May. Sue May had said something casual 
about engines and that had set him off on an eager 
lecture about static and dynamic balance of en¬ 
gine components and . . . Heavens! . . . the insolu¬ 
ble problems of gyroscopic inertia. A spindle in the 
supercharger of his engine, was, he claimed, too 
lightly built. Anyway, they’d had trouble with it on 
this morning’s flight. Sue May forgot how many thou¬ 
sand revolutions a minute the blower had to run, but 
so fast that when you dived the plane abruptly it 
put unfair strain on the spindles. 

Engines weren’t in her line, but Karl at home was 
just like this; she’d had to learn how to listen intelli¬ 
gently and to ask the right questions in the right places. 
And after lunch as people were climbing into their 
cars to go down to the polo ground for the after¬ 
noon game she’d slipped away. No chance of getting 
the bike, that was in full view. Dodging round the 
back of the D.O.’s stable she cut across lots in her 
white sandals and sheer, grey-pink organdie, and here 
she was, using the gasoline tins as just an excuse to 
haunt the landing ground. 

She rounded the tail of the sixth plane. The leader 
was parked right in front of it and from it came 
sounds of metal on metal. Oh dear, where was that 
policeman? Nobody was supposed to be allowed near 
these precious machines. Hurrying to the front to 
identify the intruder she came full on a slightly 


1 74 


THE HEROINE OF KATS1NA 

smudgy countenance below the crisp blonde hair of 
the Flight Commander. He looked up, grunted ab¬ 
sently. 

“Oh,” said Sue May, “not a native thief then, 
after all.” Then, impishly, she added, “Doctor Liv¬ 
ingstone, I presume?” 

The man, his name was Jamison, grinned. “So 
you’re the little girl who was talking engines at lunch 
to my rigger? Rather envied him.” 

The “little girl”: archaeologist, secretary to the fa¬ 
mous Professor Dering, parachute jumper, and inspec¬ 
tor of landing fields replied meekly, “Yessir!” 

The Flight Commander stood off and scowled at 
his machine. “Any quick change of direction, par¬ 
ticularly at high speed, and she loses power in her 
engine.” He was talking more to himself than to 
Sue May. “Control’s all right. Petrol feed all right; 
and it’s not an ignition fault. ...” 

“Perhaps it’s in your blower,” she suggested. Not 
in vain had she listened to the N.C.O. during lunch¬ 
time. 

“In the supercharger? But I don’t see . . .” This 
time the little girl was included in his remarks. 
“They’re tricky things, but all the same. . . .” 

Sue May explained demurely. “The high-rev. 
blowers are built too light in the spindle for their 
heavy periphery. They’ve got an appalling gyroscopic 
force at full revs.” Was she remembering this cor¬ 
rectly? “And when you make a quick change of di- 


'75 


SUNHELMET SUE 

rection the blower tries to lag and makes the spindle 
whip. As it straightens up again ... of course it’s 
only minutely ... it vibrates like a tuning fork. 
And practically jams in its bearings.” There, she’d 
done it! She gave a sigh of relief. 

“Good Lord! It might well be!” 

Sue May had just one more scrap of knowledge. 
“Of course they ought to stiffen the spindles to damp 
out the vibration; even a lead core to the spindles, 
like the lead in a pencil, would do it.” 

“I think my mechanic was saying something of 
the sort.” 

“M . . . m. You’ll find he agrees with me,” said Sue 
May. She’d got even anyhow for that slur on her 
five-foot-one. 

Obviously there wasn’t anything he could do to the 
supercharger, that was a task for some specialist in 
the Flight, but Captain Jamison continued to potter 
around, mainly for the pleasure of it. “Shan’t need to 
do much tinkering here in Katsina,” he murmured 
once. “Main trouble on these flights is damage to the 
undercarriage, due to bad landing fields.” He glanced 
round the field. “Best one we’ve met so far. Some¬ 
body here knows their business.” 

“Yessir.” Sue May continued noncommittal. 

Then came a phenomenal stroke of luck. “Think 
we could get somebody to fill up?” 

Oh yes, that was easy. Sue May exerted her Haussa, 
produced policemen and willing assistants while the 


THE HEROINE OF KATS1NA 

Flight Commander himself did the actual replenish¬ 
ing. 

“And now,” he said, “I’m going to smash quite a 
number of Air Force regulations and test this theory 
of yours about the supercharger spindle. Care to 
come?” 

“O . . . o!” said Sue May, forgetting white sandals, 
organdie frock and all. 

He glanced at her finery, then reached in the cock¬ 
pit and hauled out grease stained overalls and a 
leather jacket. “This isn’t a passenger plane, better 
climb into those.” As the engine warmed up Sue May 
crammed herself ruthlessly, ruffles and all into the 
borrowed and enormous garments, tightened the strap 
of her sunhelmet and was ready. 

Then he tossed her a parachute. “I’m taking no 
chances. Better put on that. Know how?” 

She nodded silently. Of course it wasn’t a C 37 
but by the look of the outside was pretty up to date. 

Like old times, to taxi into position, to hear the 
sudden roar of the open throttle, to feel the rush of 
wind, a gentle bump or two and then find yourself 
floating, apparently motionless while the earth slid 
past under the keel and tilted away. These army 
planes could certainly climb. 

They were still climbing when they passed over 
the government station; the buildings made of the 
red earth from which they rose were scarcely distin¬ 
guishable, but laborious care had surrounded each 


777 


SUNHELMET SUE 


with a little patch of green trees and even a few flow¬ 
ers, which made it stand out against the desert. Then 
Katsina city. The sun was low enough to cast it into a 
jigsaw puzzle of gleaming white walls and correspond¬ 
ing black, impenetrable shadow against the uniform 
brick red of roads, market squares and open lots. 
But how well the ancient city moat showed up! Sue 
May held more firmly to her sunhelmet and peered 
over the side. 

Come to think of it, this was the first time she’d 
been up since she deserted parachute jumping for 
archaeology. Despite the familiar knapsack weight 
on her back she needn’t bother now to look for a 
safe landing place, she could give her whole atten¬ 
tion to the sprawling outline of the ancient town. 
Those mounds near the saltpits looked awfully like 
tumuli. But weren’t, unfortunately. No, there seemed 
no ancient earthworks. Inside the town you could 
see where buildings, now gone, had once stood; their 
pattern, invisible from the ground showed up from 
the air like a design. If only one could charter a plane 
for a day, similar outlines might even be visible 
through the thorn brakes of Yar. 

Out beyond the polo field was the Ruma road, you 
could see where the new road cut across the old, and 
along it a string of camels, Sue May counted twelve, 
with the white garments of the Tuareg drivers. Back 
towards the town, startlingly bright against the dusty 
field, the white shirts, helmets and breeches of the 



Site May crammed rufHej 
into the enormous garments* 


































































































































































THE HEROINE OF KATS1NA 

polo players. For an instant she even tried to count 
them too. 

She felt the plane cease climbing and flatten out. 
Where would Captain }amison be heading now? As 
though in answer she saw his head turn, a fierce 
grimace and a hand signed for her to duck her head. 
She guessed what was coming, and it came. 

A brief, screeching power dive, and sharp zoom 
and a racking sideways turn. Ouch! Sue May clasped 
her stomach hurriedly then wondered if it wouldn’t 
have been wiser to hold her head. Well, if the what- 
doyoucallit in the supercharger felt as she did, no 
wonder it went on strike! 

What was the pilot aiming at now? He seemed 
to be drifting in slow circles. One of the engines was 
gone, that was it, the whole plane vibrating under 
the unequal thrust. Another short dive. Oh, he was 
trying to shake the engine into life again. 

No result, and they were a bit lower. They hadn’t 
any height to lose either, if they were going to make 
the landing ground. 

Another, and yet another sharp dive, each leaving 
them with less of the valuable height. Obviously the 
pilot hadn’t any hope of getting back to the field as 
things were and was making desperate efforts. 

Lower still now. One engine had ceased working 
entirely and the other seemed weaker. Sue May, think¬ 
ing rapidly, glanced over the side. 

Yes, it could be done. Now which way was the 

181 


SUNHELMET SUE 


wind ? Ah, you could tell that from the cloud of dust 
which rose from the galloping hoofs on the polo 
ground. 

She yelled at Captain Jamison in front of her, but 
with no hope of making herself heard. If he tried 
to land in the middle of that field he’d certainly kill 
horses, players and spectators, probably even himself 
and he hadn’t enough engine left to dive in warning, 
climb, wait till the field had cleared and then land 
safely. 

Sue May lurched from side to side of the narrow 
cockpit by way of calling his attention. As Captain 
Jamison looked back she was already casting one foot 
over the side, hanging on against a gale that almost 
tore her from the ship. Her sunhelmet parted it’s 
leather strap and went, just as the pilot looked round 
and shook his head in violent disapproval. 

Sue May grinned reassurance and jerked her chin 
back towards the parachute. Would he think to dip 
his plane as Karl did, so that she’d swing free of the 
tail? She tried to gesture down and forward with 
her chin, having no hand free. 

Yes, he’d got that, and flung up a hand in acknowl¬ 
edgment. Time for no more. Here was the place 
to bail out if she were to hit the polo ground. 

She let go. Well clear now. She pulled the rip cord, 
somewhat earlier than with the C 37, but she couldn’t 
be sure how this chute would act. A series of tugs 
on the harness; floating now, no longer falling. 


182 


THE HEROINE OF KATS1NA 

And there was the plane circling round, just a little 
above her changing horizon. Going to be a race too. 
If she didn’t touch ground in time to warn the polo 
people, get clear herself, she’d only have added to the 
dangers and difficulties of the forced landing. She 
was dropping fast, but the plane too was losing height, 
though Sue May could tell the pilot was driving it 
for all it was worth on the single engine, letting it 
run in tight circles to avoid losing way by too much 
rudder. 

Below her the polo had come to a standstill. Yes, 
she could see people’s faces now, they were looking 
up, but oh, how slowly they grew! With hands grasp¬ 
ing the cords, first on one side, then on the other 
she spilled wind, increasing the rate of descent. 

Horses and men had disappeared from the field. 
Below her a blast of heat from the sun drenched 
ground. The earth was slipping past her. She half 
turned herself in the proper direction, then struck, 
a scrambling run, fumbling at the release of the para¬ 
chute belt. The ’chute would have to take its chances. 

The polo players had caught the idea and were 
clearing off the crowd of spectators, shouting urgent 
directions. Above them the roar of the engine. The 
plane was coming in, barely clearing the white polo 
helmets. But it did clear them. 

No time for Sue May herself to run; better stop 
where she was, then the pilot might be able to dodge 
her. Drop flat, to clear the propellors. 

**3 


SUNHELMET SUE 


A roar, a blast of wind. A tail skid gouging the 
dust. And . . . Hurray! The plane was right side up 
and rolling to a stop. 

Funny, the crowd running to her, not to the plane. 
Oh yes, she was down, of course they thought she 
was hurt. 

Quickly Sue May scrambled to her feet, in time 
to reassure the first comers. If they’d just catch the 
parachute for her, to see that it didn’t get torn, please ? 
Whew, that had been a strain. Her shaking knees 
still told her that she hadn’t liked taking a chance 
with a strange parachute. 

What a jumble! More and more people crowding 
up to ask if she were hurt; the pilots and N.C.O.’s of 
the Flight explaining to the polo players; the D.O. 
translating to the Emir and his court. Sue May 
dragged off her leather jacket and hauled it over her 
head, since it was dangerous to be without a sun- 
helmet or some headcovering, and began to struggle 
through the crowd. These congratulations, anxious 
enquiries were embarrassing. Then, complete with 
parasol, spotless white gloves and supercilious smile 
appeared Mrs. Dering’s pet aversion, the wife of one 
of the station officials. 

“Rather unnecessary, my dear,” she addressed Sue 
May, “to land in the middle of the polo game. Even 
if . . . er . . . ,” her smile was a little sharper. “Spec¬ 
tacular.” 

But the effect was spoiled, her parasol almost swept 

184 


THE HEROINE OF KATS1NA 


aside by Captain Jamison right behind her. He’d 
climbed out of the plane and plunged his way through 
the crowd. 

“Dunno how to thank you. If the machine had 
been wrecked ... no spares ... all my own fault. 
. . . However did you think of it, do it?” 

“Is the plane all right?” Sue May hoped her knees 
wouldn’t give way completely. Somehow plain back- 
slapping would have been easier to meet than the 
awed, silent admiration of flying men and officials. 
Captain Jamison was even asking now if there was 
anything he could do, anything to balance what she 
had done. 

“Sure,” Sue May produced a wavering grin. Mustn’t 
let him know how scared she’d been. “Take me up 
again some time, won’t you?” And then, because it 
had been so in her mind. “Perhaps, if you’ve time, 
over a place called Yar. But just now, could I have 
a long cold drink of water?” 


i*5 


Chapter Sixteen 


A REAL DISCOVERY 


T he organdie dress was done for, at least till she 
could get home and send it to a cleaners: grease 
spots, a tear where she’d caught it on an overall buckle, 
and as wrinkled as a prune. But Sue May was feel¬ 
ing festive. She scarcely gave a glance at the grey- 
pink organdie; it was an evening for the embroidered 
green, the best she could produce. A dance at the 
Resident’s tonight for the Flight men with at least 
five men for every feminine partner, surely the answer 
to a maiden’s prayer. These Englishmen were mar¬ 
velous dancers too. 

Singing lustily, she gave that wayward curl over 
her left ear a final lick of the hairbrush and turned 
from the mirror. A gentle scratch at the door. 

“Yes, Audu. What is it?” 

“Garuba Jos is come.” 

“Your grandfather?” Why, what on earth could 
have brought him clear to Katsina! 

“He brings news,” announced Audu placidly. 

Sue May glanced out into the compound. There in 
the sunset light against the compound wall, spotless 
white turban above wrinkled plum black face, in a 


186 


A REAL DISCOVERY 

riga of white cotton embroidered in green from neck 
to hem, sat the old man, feet tucked beneath him, 
almost as immovable as the wall itself. She felt a 
warm pleasure at seeing him again. 

Greetings were performed with punctilio, Sue May 
rather proud to show her mastery of their oriental 
intricacy. Then Garuba rose and gazed upon her with 
wonder, even perhaps with anxiety. “Only today, it 
is told, that you leaped from a jirigin sama, an engine 
of the skies, yet fell to earth unharmed. Truly the 
annabawa must have borne you in their hands. And 
it is further said that by so acting as a forerunner 
you saved the lives of many who would have been 
crushed when the machine came to earth.” 

Sue May was astonished. Already the story was cur¬ 
rent in the market place! And the correct version too, 
with of course the unimportant exception that she had 
descended by parachute! But surely Garuba hadn’t 
come just to congratulate her on this ? 

No. He was a bearer of news. “He who knows of 
the cave at Ruma is in Lagos, and for the time is a 
contractor for the Government and therefore cannot 
come. But in Lagos I spoke with him regarding the 
cave.” 

Curiouser and curiouser! Garuba had then been in 
Lagos since she saw him, and had now come clear 
to Katsina! 

“Moreover I bound him to tell this to no other, until 
your permission is given. Is that well?” 

i8j 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Yes, of course she was pleased. But Sue May con¬ 
tinued to tell herself that the cave was scarcely worth 
all this fuss. Why, even the Governor had warned 
her, at the beginning, that she would find nothing 
spectacular in West Africa. The cave would be just 
the fizzle that Yar was, and anyway she had very little 
faith in second-hand directions for finding a place. 

Garuba was already embarked on a description of 
the route from Katsina. The landmarks: the forehead 
shaped rock where the road forked to a stream in 
which once there had been crocodiles; half an hour 
further to the well at which a man died of thirst— 

Sue May sent Audu for paper and pencil and tried 
to jot these down, but they meant nothing to a 
stranger like herself. Garuba had a better idea. 

Tucking back the sleeve of his robe he smoothed a 
little area of the dusty earth with the palm of his 
hand, then with forefinger began to draw. “Now here 
is the compound wherein we sit. And the road to the 
birni, the walled city, thus. Passing through it, thus 
and thus.” His long finger traced in the dust. “Here 
is the gate whereby you leave it.” Sue May’s pencil 
hurried to follow on paper. “And here on the left 
the ground where the game of polo is played.” 

She could check the accuracy so far, the plan might 
have been made from an ordinance survey; it was 
exactly as she had seen it from the plane this after¬ 
noon, even to the points of the compass. 

Once on the Ruma road, having followed these 


188 


\ 


A REAL DISCOVERY 

directions, you just, it seemed, kept on trekking. 
Until . . . and here was the problem; you had to 
recognize a certain landmark. Sue May tried, and 
tried again to get something to go by. But skilled as 
had been the old man’s map making, he, like other 
natives, had no measure of distance. Obviously, to a 
native, this tree, of a certain rare type, would have 
been instantly recognized and the tree was important 
for beside it branched the road towards the caves. 

Garuba considered for a moment how this unfor- 
seen difficulty might be overcome. “The place could 
be shown you. On foot it is distant, but on your \e\i 
. . . he must mean the push-bike, . . . you could go 
and come within a day. I myself will start at dawn, 
heading a camel train for Ruma.” His tone politely 
suggested that she also might wish to go with him that 
way. 

Well, that was a thought. And the camel idea cer¬ 
tainly sounded thrilling. But there was also the Yar 
trip to consider, Sue May had specially asked for that 
and she couldn’t go off tomorrow if that was the day 
for Yar. Then she remembered that Captain Jamison 
had said that the Flight would be busy in Katsina for 
several days before they moved off, and she could 
make sure of that this evening. There was also the 
matter of what the Derings would think of this trip 
to Ruma? 

“Even as your grandson is in my hire,” she told 
the trader, “so am I a mallam, a writer, hired by the 


SUNHELMET SUE 

Learned One. I must consult him before I can make 
decision.” 

Professor Dering agreed at once, and brought out 
a lamp into the dusky compound to examine the map. 
Even Mrs. Dering was interested. 

“Couldn’t you, Gerald,” she suggested, “run Sue 
May out and back on your motorbike? I’ll stay and 
hold the fort for a day and cope with these Air Force 
festivities.” 

The Professor was checking Sue May’s map with the 
one on the ground. “I expect she would find the camel 
more interesting. Why not,” he glanced over his 
spectacles at Sue May, “travel out with Garuba’s camel 
train tomorrow? Then let me come out late in the 
afternoon and bring you home. I’d like very much 
to see this cave.” 

So that was settled, and with Mrs. Dering’s bless¬ 
ing. “Go ahead with your exploring, you two chil¬ 
dren. I’ll be glad to have the house free, for a few 
hours, from the unfortunate natives who have to an¬ 
swer the Professor’s endless catechisms.” 

Sue May’s feeling of adventure lasted well into the 
middle of the next morning, but then slowly began 
to give way before a growing conviction that her 
back was going to snap right in two! True, she had 
the pick of the riding camels, a tall, gangling, grunt¬ 
ing swaying brute, and her high saddle was well pad¬ 
ded with luxurious oriental rugs. And it had all 
looked so easy when she’d seen the blue-veiled Tuareg 


igo 


A REAL DISCOVERY 

camel drivers of the Emir’s stables disdainfully sway¬ 
ing through the town. But now at every stride her 
backbone seemed to bend like a hinge and—she did 
a rough calculation—that hinge must have bent and 
straightened well over sixty thousand times since they 
left Katsina at dawn. Oh glory be, they were going to 
draw up for a midday halt! 

Someone caught her camel, and in camel language 
ordered it to “barra\!” Two last final jerks which put 
her sunhelmet over the back of her ear and then . . . 
how glorious! She slid to the ground, staggered a 
few steps with cramped knees and looked with sur¬ 
prise at the landscape, now ceasing to rock and dip. 

Garuba Jos came forward with a belated “Saukji 
lafia. Alight safely!” And a request that she would 
deign to eat. This was a meal especially for her 
benefit. The native, while he rests at midday and 
drinks water, does not eat between breakfast and nearly 
sunset. 

And such a meal. Sue May in a deckchair beneath 
a wide spreading tree tried not to smile at this white- 
man’s food. Spread at her feet on two clean but 
gaudy towels were opened cans of sardines, a sweet 
kind of condensed milk with a spoon inserted to 
show that it was to be eaten direct, a large tin of 
assorted chocolate biscuits, Garuba, like a good host 
had remembered her taste for these, and two small 
calabash bowls, one containing peanuts only half 
roasted but shelled. There was also a dish of really 


SUNHELMET SUE 


delicious ripe dates and a pot of excellent tea with 
lumps of sugar. 

One of Garuba’s servants brought water to pour 
over her hands. Sue May was beginning to feel like 
something out of the Arabian Nights. 

The tea was good after the thirsty morning’s ride 
but it was difficult to know just how to combine the 
other courses. Did one eat the sardines plain, or 
should they be sandwiched between chocolate bis¬ 
cuits! No time to ask for the advice of Emily Post. 

Lunch over, she was shown a near-by resthouse 
where rugs had been spread for her. Sue May grate¬ 
fully made a pillow of her raincoat and slept off the 
effects of the meal. She awoke feeling rested and 
refreshed but started up with a little screech of dis¬ 
may; her backbone seemed set in a permanent kink. 

More camel riding. The day growing cooler, the 
kinks in the back less viciously painful. Then a halt 
and Garuba Jos explaining that here they must leave 
the camel train, strike off into the bush. He would, 
he said, leave word and a guide for Maitambaiya, the 
Questioner. 

In this open, semi-desert country walking was easy. 
The path led gently uphill, then down again towards 
the stream bed. Because of the need for secrecy 
Garuba had left his servants and camel drivers behind 
and Sue May was silent, busy thinking how she should 
thank him for his hospitality and courtesy. She was 
beginning to suspect that he had made the trip all 


792 


A REAL DISCOVERY 

the way down to Lagos especially to find his friend 
who knew of the cave, though a native Haussa will 
welcome any excuse to travel anywhere. And this 
trip to the caves—he had told a tale of a relative in 
Timbuctu and of combining trade with a visit, but that 
also might be only an excuse to cover his kindness. 

She was almost sure, she was thinking, that the 
caves would be another flop, like Yar. There had 
been so many years since Garuba’s friend had taken 
refuge there in the storm, plenty of time for amateur 
archaeologists and just plain robbers to find and de¬ 
stroy anything of value. And once on the spot, fac¬ 
ing this almost certain disappointment, she knew she 
would find it difficult to render gratitude and appre¬ 
ciation. Better build it up here and now, before she 
was again disillusioned. 

But Garuba waved away thanks with one thin 
silver-ringed hand. “When young, one who has long 
heels will always travel, for adventure, for the seeing 
of new lands and people. Later for profit, for trade. 
But still later, when one is old, if one has still the 
wandering foot, it is needful that one find occasion, 
pretext, that one may travel.” Practically making it a 
favor that she had conferred upon him. 

Trees and huge granite boulders by the stream, and 
pleasant green places. On the further side of the 
stream a granite mass, with a flaw like a jagged pen¬ 
cil stroke down the center. Garuba drew her attention. 

“The place whereof my friend spoke ” 


*93 


SUNHELMET SUE 


What, that narrow fissure? 

Yet as the path dropped again towards the stream 
bed the rock seemed to grow above them. Not a true 
cave, Sue May reflected, like those in limestone. Yet 
in a tropical country it might serve as well, or even 
better since limestone would have been damp shelter 
for the primitive, far-off people who used it. And 
through the treetops she could see a hopeful sign, 
ground sloping up like a cone, its tip pointing directly 
at the crack. 

A talus, the geologists called it, didn’t they?—the 
jumble of fallen rocks leaning against the base of a 
steep hill. But this couldn’t be a talus. Granite, if it 
had fallen, would have stood about in rough chunks 
and this was a long smooth slope as of something 
that had long flowed from the cave mouth. She 
wouldn’t admit, even to herself, all that this ought 
to mean. 

If only Professor Dering were here, to add some 
sort of reassurance, or to dispel her hopes before they 
rose too high. 

The faint puta-puta down the road. Ah, that would 
be his motorbike. Garuba too had heard it. “Maitam- 
baiya approaches.” 

‘‘Let us await him,” said Sue May, plumping herself 
resolutely on the ground, looking resolutely away 
from that talus. 

It seemed an age before she could say, “So glad you 
managed to get away so early.” 


194 


A REAL DISCOVERY 

“Dodged another luncheon to the Flight people,” 
Professor Dering grinned cheerfully. “They’ll be 
really glad of one male the less. Now where’s this 
cave of yours? That it?—By Jiminy!—” He checked 
further comment. But Sue May’s heart gave a wild 
summersault. So he too thought it good, did he! 

A rush down to the streambed. Precarious leaping 
from rock to rock. The Professor led the assault on the 
further slope. Perspiring they slowed to a gasping 
scramble up the steep talus. 

Overgrown. But of course it would be, after how 
many hundreds, thousands of years? 

“Notice the vegetation here is different?” said the 
Professor. “That means that the nature of the soil is 
different too.” Then—“Of course everything outside 
will have rotted down, this isn’t the dry Egyptian cli¬ 
mate that preserves for centuries. But there’s always 
a chance inside the cave. . . . Petrification. Pity it’s 
granite though.” He continued murmuring almost to 
himself, but Sue May knew what he meant about the 
granite. Limestone would mean dripping lime inside, 
which in many years forms a preserving coat over all 
it touches. 

Then she paused with a yelp. When the Professor 
looked round she was holding a stone in her hand. 

“A Neolith! An axe head!” Polished. A perfect 
beauty. She was stammering with excitement. This, 
this alone that she’d found on her own site all by 
herself with no one to show her or to identify for her, 


J 95 


SUNHELMET SUE 


almost repaid her for all her trip out to Africa. Even 
paid for the disappointment at Yar. It was her first 
real find. 

But the Professor held up another. “A fairly com¬ 
mon type which survived until quite recent times. But 
this of course is only the top surface of the ‘Kitchen 
midden.’ ” 

Kitchen midden! Those were the words that had 
been singing through her head, the words she hadn’t 
dared admit even to herself. That’s what it was; not 
a talus just left by nature but a pile of household 
rubbish, invaluable to the archaeologist, thrown out 
by generation after generation of cave dwellers back 
through uncounted centuries. An inch of depth might 
mean a year or many years. It was awe inspiring, all 
this slope of unwritten history, of prehistory. 

The top of the mound levelled off where doubtless 
families of a forgotten race had sat before the cave 
mouth to sun themselves, had ground their corn, in 
earlier times had skinned their prey and sharpened 
their stone axes. They probably hadn’t looked Afri¬ 
can at all, those people of the lower layers; hadn’t yet 
begun to develop the tightly kinked hair and broad 
noses and other special characteristics which suited 
this hot, changing climate. 

Gosh, she thought, it might even have been a dif¬ 
ferent climate, so far back as that! 

Tactfully and also for his own comfort Garuba 
Jos had made no attempt to keep up with these two 

196 


A REAL DISCOVERY 

enthusiasts. Perhaps he found them a little madder 
even than the usual whiteman. Sue May didn’t care. 
The Professor’s obvious excitement gave solid support 
to her wildest dreams. And he too might have been 
thinking along the same line, for at the entrance to 
the cave he stopped and waited. 

“Do we park our stone axes in the umbrella stand, 
as a sign to the Ancestral Spirits that we come in 
peace?” he enquired. 

“Dump your mastodon outside,” Sue May frowned 
in mock sternness. “You know I never allow you to 
skin them in the house.” Oh, the Professor was a 
dear! 

And then they entered. 

A passageway, ten feet wide, extending upward in 
a giant crack. Twenty paces or so and the last little 
stunted shrub, the last little blade of grass gave way 
before the bare flat surface, almost like cement. A 
slight curve in the wall presently cut off the light, 
and they produced electric torches. 

The crack seemed to go on and on, indefinitely; 
the floor sloped, as the life of those ancient house¬ 
holders had been lived at the cave mouth and in the 
sunlight outside, where slowly was built up the pile 
of dirt and rubbish. 

Garuba Jos rustled behind them. “Yet further it was, 
that my friend said the hole grew wider, and draw¬ 
ings had been made upon the rock.” 

Down, inward and downward, the slope growing 


797 


SUNHELMET SUE 


almost as steep as that outside the cave mouth. Packed 
tight and smooth by damp and years but without an 
atom of vegetation. It was cool, smelling damply with 
the condensation of the hot air from outside and Sue 
May shoved back her helmet, letting it hang by the 
strap. There was even a slight breeze, the crack above 
them acting like a chimney. 

A stir, a murmur and then a roar overhead. “Bats,” 
said the Professor. “The cleft must be full of them.” 

Then Sue May, torch in hand, saw it first. The al¬ 
most impossible was true. Garuba Jos had been right, 
right to the letter! Sue May could almost have turned 
and hugged him. 

There were animals and birds and birds and ani¬ 
mals, carved on the hard and jagged rock. Only the 
tips of some of the drawings were visible as her torch 
played over them, the remainder of the creatures lay 
hid beneath the piles of debris that formed the hard 
cave floor. 

“Unique,” murmured the Professor softly to him¬ 
self. “Unique. No other example known, that I’ve 
heard of. Excavation will reveal the growth of pic¬ 
torial art, each stage lower will show, almost cer¬ 
tainly, what the one above has grown from.” 

The searching torches discovered more and yet more 
of this amazing prehistoric art gallery. Not content 
with the almost impossible task of carving on the 
hard granite without metal instruments, the early art¬ 
ists had gone even a step further, with incalculable 


A REAL DISCOVERY 


labor they had actually smoothed down the granite 
face in some places. These might be the more recent 
ones, perhaps only a thousand years old. The artists 
had by then stopped trying just to copy birds and 
animals, and had begun to compound imaginative 
pictures of fabulous beasts. One looked like a bee 
with a human head surrounded by an elaborate geo¬ 
metrical pattern, and yes, the whole body of the bee, if 
it were a bee, had been covered with another sort of 
pattern. Sue May bent nearer to examine it close to 
the ground. Scales those were, weren’t they? Each 
scale filled with a still smaller ornamentation. She 
wondered whether, with his rude stone implements one 
man could complete one of these pictures in a life¬ 
time, or would it be an inherited task handed down 
from father to son? 

Sue May was growing scared. If this were a dream, 
she hoped she wasn’t going to wake up. It was too 
much, she felt, to be anything but a dream, and if 
so, more disappointing than she could bear. 

And further still in the cave they came on human 
figures. Of course that was frankly impossible! 

They were elaborate drawings of single individu¬ 
als, showing even their weapons and ornaments. And 
less elaborate, more conventionalized were scenes 
which might have been the development of picto- 
grams, those rebus-like forerunners of regular writ¬ 
ing. The drawing of a man for instance had become, 
in some cases, little more than a conventional symbol. 


199 


SUNHELMET SUE 


“No,” Sue May spoke aloud in the silence. “No. 
I can’t! I can’t!” 

“Can’t what?” The Professor’s tone was anxious. 

“I’ve got to get out—it’s all too much—nothing 
stops—it just goes on and on!” She began to stam¬ 
mer. “The c-cave, it keeps on going down and down 
through the years. The people keep on living and 
dying generation after generation! And there isn’t 
any end to the pictures, or the years—or the cen¬ 
turies. Or anything!” 

“We’ll turn back,” was the Professor’s firm decision, 
and he took her arm. He slanted the torch downward 
to light only the slope as they scurried up the path 
again. It was friendly, the narrow circle of light, cut¬ 
ting out all but the cool present, cutting them off 
from the too much that had gone before. 

At the cave mouth as she drew a long breath of the 
fresh warm air Sue May’s knees were steady again. 
“Sorry I made a fool of myself.” Nice to be out here, 
back in our own century again, looking over the 
familiar African landscape in warm sunset light. 

“I know the feeling. I had it when I got pretty 
deep in astronomy, as a young man. The stars do it 
more even than the generations that have gone before.” 

They waited a moment there before starting down. 
“And by the way,” he asked. “What are you going to 
do with your discovery?” 

Sue May protested. It wasn’t hers, not hers alone. 
It was Garuba’s, and his friend’s, and the Professor’s. 


200 



Sue May was reared. It kluV 
tv&fadr&msfie didatmnkto 
WAke up! 
























I 









# 


A REAL DISCOVERY 

But Garuba would have none of it. He was a trader, 
and this was nothing that could be bought or sold. 

“And I,” declared the Professor, “am an anthro¬ 
pologist. I believe that a cobbler should stick to his 
last. I’ll help of course in any way you like, but 
you, Susan, are the archaeologist of the expedition and 
to you belongs the honor.” 

Sue May hoped she wasn’t going to get shaky 
again. It was all too much. She had wanted a nice 
little dinky cave with a few caveman scratches, some 
stone implements and maybe a bone or two, a sort 
of archaeological baby rattle to play with, and now 
she’d got this. This! 

“Reputations,” said the Professor as they slithered 
down the slope, “will be made and broken over this 
discovery of yours.” 

Though it was hot, Sue May shivered. 


Chapter Seventeen 

YAR YIELDS UP A SECRET 

D ear Karl: Well of all the little salesmen! How 
did you happen to go into the job of author’s 
agent? When your letter arrived with the check you 
could have bowled me over with a palm leaf. Not that 
I’m not grateful, I am, I am, I am! And if Dad ever 
consents to my taking that French Archaeological 
course I wrote you about, the check will keep me go¬ 
ing for a couple of weeks on it. But . . . did you bump 
the editors on the head, or was it just chloroform? 
If I’d had any idea that my letters to you were going 
to appear as newspaper articles I’d have been com¬ 
pletely pen-tied. At any rate I’m relieved to hear that 
you omitted bits, such as that part about the local 
witchdoctor resembling the principal of Senior High! 

Please, please, though dear Karl, don’t print the 
bits about Yar. It’s a washout of course, but some¬ 
how I still have a tender place in my heart for it 
and would like to keep it to myself, specially now 
that the Ruma cave business has turned out so big 
. . . see accompanying letter. There’s been more 
about Yar lately, and as the mails don’t push off for 
another hour I thought I’d tell you about it. 


204 


YAR YIELDS UP A SECRET 

It goes back a few days to when the fliers droned 
in from Egypt, a whole Flight of ’em, and except for 
the non-coms., most of them looked, in their pink and 
white English way, as though they ought still to be 
in High School. But can they flop a wicked wing! 
Well, I was up with the Flight Commander one after¬ 
noon and had to bail out of his army crate bang into 
the middle of a polo game, and as advance agent, gave 
the pilot a chance to make a forced landing on a clear 
field. 

Wild acclaim for your Sunhelmet Sue! Pilot par¬ 
ticularly grateful, “if it hadn’t been for me he’d have 
wrecked the bus and perhaps killed people, disor¬ 
ganized the Flight”. . . and pretty nearly bust up 
the British Empire I suppose! 

He said he simply had to do something for me. He 
was so pink and embarrassed that I suggested another 
flight! 

“Where?” sez he. 

“Yar,” sez I, almost without thinking. 

“Yah?” says he, puzzled at my crude American 
way of saying ‘y es *’ ” 

“No, Yar. Y-a-r,” says I, “name of a place.” 

But first we had to refold the parachute. The only 
place long enough and wide enough and flat enough 
was the smooth concrete of the native court polished 
like black ice by many bare feet. The Emir was so 
impressed by the need for a clean floor that he sent 
a galloper ahead and when we arrived with the para- 


205 


SUNHELMET SUE 


chute there were twenty people flat on their tummies, 
a long line, blowing the dust away! 

And then as soon as the captain had the spindles of 
the supercharger fixed, round comes a chit. (That’s 
British, or I guess Hindustani, for a small note, Karl. 
Not a diminutive female native!) 

“I shall be so glad if you’ll take flight this afternoon, 
the objective as you suggested.” So I replied more or 
less to the effect that Sue May Innis had much pleas¬ 
ure in accepting the kind invitation of Captain An- 
struther Jamison for the afternoon of the tenth. And 
well, we hopped off. 

Yar isn’t marked on the map but I’d jotted down 
its position on the official i; 250000. Of course the 
map itself was no flying map but we followed 
rivers and roads and by the time we’d got fairly near 
I’d begun to recognize the lay of the land. It helped 
a lot that we were then out of flat desert country, with 
fairly characteristic hills and valleys to guide us. I 
don’t really know what I’d expected, but there was the 
wide stretch of almost grey blue thorn trees, looking 
as disarmingly smooth and soft as grey lichen, noth¬ 
ing like the vile, ferocious stuff it really is. And in 
the middle, almost the same color, the three hills in 
clover leaf shape, with the green stalk which was the 
stream up which I walked, you remember, that day I 
went down the shoot-the-chutes. 

Certainly I hadn’t expected to find much more, 
though I’d brought the old camera and heaps of 


206 


YAR YIELDS VP A SECRET 

film. I wasn’t going to let that place trick this little 
archaeologist again. But with the oblique sun, it was 
getting around four then, I began to imagine things, 
sort of patterns in the grey thorn trees like the raised 
design that shows up in some lights on a damask din¬ 
ner cloth. Only even vaguer than that. 

Captain Jamison pointed downward and looked as 
brightly intelligent as one can behind a pair of air 
goggles. Having armed myself this time with our 
old friend pad and pencil I shoved it over, and he wrote 
back. “Photographs? What for?” “Probably,” thinks 
he, in his bright British way, “the gal wants a picture 
of some place she fell out.” 

But I wrote back, “Buried city” which ought to 
have been exciting enough to stir even an English¬ 
man. He said, “Where?” So I made a little sketch 
of the three mushroom stones and the thorn brake. 
We were right over it then. 

At his suggestion we dropped lower; there wasn’t 
a landing ground for miles if we’d had any more 
trouble, so it was pretty decent of him. There was a 
clock, altimeter and compass among other dials in 
my cockpit, it being a dual control machine. While 
he kept the plane on a straight course at a fixed height 
I was to take my photos at so many seconds intervals, 
and note down height and course on each snapshot. 
But the intervals were too short, it couldn’t be done, 
so we had to fly back over the first course twice and 
I do hope that the second lot of exposures filled in 


SUNHELMET SUE 


the gaps between the first—though I was using twelve 
exposure film, I seemed to be changing every minute. 
We got better on the second and third strips and by 
the time we’d circled round for an oblique shot I felt 
like a hardened professional. The first lot may be a 
flop because I was resting the camera on the edge of 
the cockpit and had forgotten about vibration; and 
then I’d taken off my goggles and my eyes were water¬ 
ing like an onion peeler so that I may not have read 
the instruments correctly. You see I’d just thought 
of taking a few casual snaps, it was only for con¬ 
venience that I’d brought along the whole carrier of 
films. But I’ve certainly had a splendid lesson on 
aerial surveying. 

Anstruther Jamison got right chatty on the way back, 
via the memo pad. I’m saving the conversation as it’s 
a pretty fair manual of instruction for beginners. 
He’s terribly keen and never goes anywhere without 
a camera or two in the plane, the expensive kind of 
course, electrically driven, that shoots through the 
floor boards. But as they had to cross French terri¬ 
tory on the trip out from Egypt the French authori¬ 
ties wouldn’t allow them so much as a vest pocket 
Kodak. He’s going to develop these films for me if 
he can, though where he’ll get the chemicals or the 
apparatus I don’t know. Almost nobody out here does 
his own darkroom work because of the heat and the 
dubious chemicals in the water; even the Professor 
sends all his back to England immediately they’re 


208 


YAR YIELDS UP A SECRET 

taken. But my pet of a Flight Commander says that 
this is no hotter than Egypt and that if you use the 
right method there’s no trouble at all. 

On which hopeful and optimistic note we will close, 
my dear Karl. No forced landings, no parachute de¬ 
scents this time and ... so long until tomorrow. . . . 

Your Sunhelmet Sue 

Sue May had dragged her camp bed and mosquito 
net out on the flat roof. Cooler here, but the full moon 
was so bright she found it hard to sleep, and this had 
been an exciting week, too exciting to stop thinking 
about. Below her lay the garden, all blue green space 
and furry black shadow, somewhere a \ura, a hyena, 
howled far out across the sandy flat country and there 
was a light in one of the servants’ huts behind the 
kitchen. Sue May closed her eyes again. But they 
would pop open. 

That was how she happened to see someone enter 
the side gate, a small boy in a short white robe. He 
paused a moment as though doubtful whether to come 
to the dark house, then turned towards the huts at the 
back. Sue May’s heart began to pound; Captain 
Jamison had said that he might develop the films 
tonight. Could this be ... ? She flung out of bed, 
thrust feet into slippers and was downstairs before the 
boy had reached Audu’s mat-hung doorway. 

“Ta\arda, —Paper,” said the small boy. 

Sue May opened the folded chit. Yes, for her. And 


209 


SUNHELMET SUE 


yes, that duck of a flying man had got hold of chemi¬ 
cals, materials, somehow somewhere, and was actu¬ 
ally now, this very minute, working on her films. 
Did she want to come along and see whatever there 
was to be seen? 

Did she? Sue May forgot that there wouldn’t of 
course be anything visible, anything worth photograph¬ 
ing on the Yar pictures, forgot that this had been the 
first big disappointment of her archaeological career. 

“Wait,” she said to the boy. “Wait here, I’ll come 
with you,” and tore back to her room. Five minutes 
and she had slipped on skirt and pullover, thrust her 
feet into sandals, run a comb through her hair, . . . 
turned back to dab powder on her nose, and was off 
with the small boy. 

The boy led the way. Not back to the D.O.’s house, 
where Captain Jamison was quartered, but across 
moonlit fields, by a short cut to the Katsina club¬ 
house, a musty deserted little place where old maga¬ 
zines and ancient books collected among broken arm 
chairs and wobbly-legged tables. It looked deserted, 
but the boy scratched on the door covering. 

The bright flare of the club acetylene lamp perched 
shadeless on the end of the library table. Propped 
against a pile of old Punches was a printing frame 
and a red developing light burning itself out in one 
corner beside a smelly collection of buckets and trays. 
Jamison and the D.O. were striding about, jacketless, 


210 


YAR YIELDS UP A SECRET 

collarless, the sleeves of their evening shirts rolled 
up to their elbows. 

“Good, you’re here,” said Jamison. “Got something, 
I think.” 

“Don’t be too sure,” said the D.O., but with the 
same fanatic gleam in his eye. 

“Take a chair, won’t you?” said Jamison, “won’t 
be a minute now before we get a definite print. We 
sent one of the planes to Kano for ice, and at ten 
o’clock practically pitched the last bridge four out of 
here to get a place to work.” 

For a minute that seemed like twenty Sue May 
waited and held her breath. Captain Jamison glanced 
at his wrist watch. 

“Time,” he said. 

Click click went the clasps of the printing frame. 
Then all three heads were bent over the shallow 
developing tray in the ray of the red lamp. 

Of course they’d developed several spools of nega¬ 
tives before starting to print. But . . . Sue May looked 
anxiously at the developing blur; these air photos 
showed no striking contrast of light and shade, land 
and sky. But underneath, fair and clear in her own 
handwriting, scratched with the camera stylo, “Yar, 
South Three.” 

From the developer to the fixer, standing in its 
dish of ice water. The faint tick of Jamison’s watch 
was the only sound in the room. Then— 


211 


SUNHELMET SUE 


“That’ll do it. And we’ve still got the negative if 
we spoil the print.” 

Back to the full glare of the acetylene lamp. Sue 
May didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. 

Clear and sharp on the little print there was part of 
one of the stone domes of Yar. And all around it, 
patterns, patterns, patterns! Like an elaborate water 
mark, showing through the uniform grey of the 
thorn trees. Lines that were straight, lines that were 
curved, circles and ovals. A town wall, yes that was 
clear. Wide roads, wider than those in the present 
native villages. And the others . . . they might be 
huts, they might be palaces, gardens or grazing land, 
but the foundations were all there, underneath the 
thorn growth for whoever started to dig. 

“By Jove!” exclaimed the D.O. “You have found 
something this time! Looks like the work of a stone 
age town planning committee. Congratulations, Miss 
Innis.” 


2/2 


Chapter Eighteen 


THE FLIGHT AGAIN 


udu, looking worried, reported “Cook no be fit to 



catch chicken for lunch yet.” 

Oh dear, and lunch only an hour away. Sue May, 
peering over the pile of tin trunks and stores of house¬ 
hold goods swung round from her improvised chop- 
box desk and wrenched her mind from the Profes¬ 
sor’s present manuscript to this urgent domestic prob¬ 
lem. 

Mrs. Dering in the doorway asked sweetly, “You 
know, Sue May, the Station Magistrate is going to 
give us a lift to the dance tonight, but there was some¬ 
thing about a new battery to his car. Wonder if you 
could drop him a tactful note and find out? You’re 
better at that than I am.” 

Heavens, another dance! Oh yes, the Flight men. 
Zaria these days was just Katsina all over again, only 
fifty times worse. Sue May ripped the manuscript 
out of her typewriter and stuck in a bit of notepaper. 
Audu could take this chit off to the S.M. before lunch 
. . . vaguely in the back of her mind there was some¬ 
thing too about what she was going to wear. It 

213 


SUNHELMET SUE 


seemed as though she had hardly an evening dress 
left. 

Another voice asking a question. Mrs. Dering had 
melted away, this was the Professor. “Almost ready 
with those notes, Susan? I want to get them off on 
the mail train tonight if I can. . . . Oh, you’re busy 
with them, I see. ...” He was gone too. But there 
was someone still in the door. . . . Sue May signed 
the chit to the S.M. and glanced up again. Audu, oh 
glory!—and still that problem of the chicken. 

How about a tin of salmon? No, they’d had that 
yesterday. But this thank goodness was Zaria, not 
Katsina, and there were shops here, whiteman’s shops. 
She solved two problems with one move. “Go, Audu. 
Take this paper to the Station Magistrate, and bring 
back from the Canteen in the town two cans of little 
French peas and two of . . . Wait, I’ll write it down 
for you.” Another sheet in the typewriter, hitting now 
on all fingers; wonderful how much time this touch 
system saved. But it didn’t save enough. Time . . . 
time . . . time . . . 

Good, Audu was gone. Alone again, and she could 
get back to the Professor’s work. It’d been like this 
for . . . ten days was it?—two weeks, ever since the 
Flight had come from the north. After Ruma and the 
Yar discoveries the planes had gone of course. But 
almost immediately the Derings had moved too. To 
Funtua, a hundred miles down towards the railroad; 
mobike, push-bike, boxes, carriers and all, a small 


214 


THE FLIGHT AGAIN 

army to organize, pack, arrange, feed, pay off. En¬ 
trained for Zaria. 

Here, thank goodness, it would be quiet. Sue May, 
three days ago had drawn a full breath of relief. A 
little resthouse, tiny, compact, comfortable, right away 
in the Forest Reserve. Not in Zaria station this time. 
No social activities, no need to mingle in the whirl 
of Zaria station life. Time to get on with her own 
packing, before she had to sail for home, time to 
finish the exacting needs of her secretarial job, time 
to breathe. So she had imagined. 

Oh yeah! Sue May grinned ruefully now at the 
thought. For here, right in Zaria were, of all people, 
the Flight, intact to a man, but all looking slightly 
faded and weary. And again the round of dinners, 
dances, teas and whatnots. It was certainly exhaust¬ 
ing. Sue May almost wished she’d never have to 
hear a rumba record again, dance another dance. 
Almost, but not quite. 

The last page, the very last page of the Professor’s 
notes. She could correct them if necessary before lunch, 
and after that manage to get half an hour to go on 
with her packing, mending, sorting, that simply had 
to be done. Why, she was going home on Elder 
Dempster steamer, first class, in ten, no, nine days 
now. Horrible what tropical sun, trekking, and sun¬ 
light did to one’s clothes out here. If she didn’t get 
a rag or two mended pretty soon she’d land in the 
States looking more like an applicant for Government 


2/5 


SUNHELMET SUE 


relief, than a successful archaeologist who felt she 
must persuade a reluctant father that archaeology is 
the one job in the world. 

There, the final paragraph. Sue May glanced 
through the pages, made a note or two, heard foot¬ 
steps on the laterite gravel and thought that the Pro¬ 
fessor could take his manuscript now. 

But it wasn’t the Professor. A deep voice said, “Does 
anyone live here?” 

“If you’ll lift one of these chop-boxes!” Sue May 
shoved back the damp curls around her forehead and 
wished she didn’t feel so hot and shiny, “you’ll find 
me somewhere underneath.” Then standing up, 
emerging from her barricade, “Hi, ‘Cap!’ ” She’d had 
to start calling him “Cap” to avoid the temptation of 
“Annie,” short for “Anstruther,” which was what the 
Flight called him. 

“Good Lord. You here? I was looking for a bit 
of peace . . . that is . . 

“This is no place to come for it. More like a three 
ring circus. Have a chair will you? One of these 
deck chairs, on the verandah. I’ll get something cool, 
we’ve got ice here anyway.” That’d give her a chance 
at the powder box! 

When she reappeared on the verandah, a pleasant 
tingle of ice from the glass of lime juice in her hand, 
Captain Jamison lay limply in his deck chair. 

He half opened his eyes. “Wish I lived here in the 
cool peace of all these trees. I’ve drawn the best host 


216 










































































































THE FLIGHT AGAIN 

in all Zaria, a man who won’t leave me alone for a 
moment, who hops back from his office half a dozen 
times in a morning to see that I’m being entertained 
and taken care of! And on top of all the other hos¬ 
pitality it’s just getting me down. But here it’s peace.” 

“Peace!” Sue May’s burst of laughter scattered two 
lizards basking on the wall, made her guest sit up 
and open his eyes. 

“Why, what have I said?” 

“If your idea of peace is a mad-house . . . Gosh, 
that reminds me.” She dived for her memorandum 
pad and pencil. “Passports, steamer tickets, railway 
tickets, hunt up . . .” she jotted an addition at the 
bottom of the full list. 

“Yours?” asked the Captain. “Oh, of course they 
are. I’d forgotten. Somehow I’d looked on myself as 
the transient and yourself as the resident. You know, 
meeting you in Katsina and here too made you seem 
even more permanent than the other people.” 

Sue May explained. In a few days’ time would begin 
her seven thousand mile trek home. Via England 
this time, as cargo boats running direct to the States 
wouldn’t take a lone girl. And somehow she must 
manage to be back at High School at the beginning of 
her senior year. 

“High School?” asked Jamison. He seemed sur¬ 
prised. “But I thought you were an archaeologist and 
an anthropologist and a lot of white-bearded things 
like that.” 


2/9 


SUNHELMET SUE 


“Oh, I’m going to be. That’s why, among other 
things, I’m specializing in French next year. I want 
to sell Dad on letting me go to the American School 
of Archaeology in France.” 

The Flight Commander was silent a moment, then 
seemingly switched the conversation. “You know fly¬ 
ing and polo in Egypt, flying and fox hunting in Eng¬ 
land, they don’t take all one’s time or all one’s thought. 
Of course I’ve been running a sideline of aerial sur¬ 
vey and that’s made me rub up my math an awful lot. 
But I’ve been wondering . . he gazed reflectively 
into his empty glass, “ever since we took those photos 
of Yar; can’t one combine archaeology and flying?” 

“You can,” said Sue May. “People do. There’s 
Woodhenge, near to Stonehenge in England. Most of 
the discovery of that was done from air photos, and 
a lot of bronze age sites in other parts of England 
have been spotted the same way. Roman encamp¬ 
ments too, shown up by their different shades on the 
wheatfields. And of course on our side of the water, 
more Aztec and Mayan temples have been found that 
way in the last few years, than were ever discovered 
by wading through the jungles of Yucatan.” 

“Garuba Jos ya zo. Garuba of Jos is here.” Silent 
footed the Dering’s houseboy appeared on the verandah. 

“Oh? Good heavens, that man is liable to pop 
up anywhere. Shouldn’t be surprised if when I land 
in New York he is already there, hobnobbing with 
the Statue of Liberty.” She turned to the houseboy. 


220 


THE FLIGHT AGAIN 

“Ask him to come here, will you?” And as the boy 
disappeared she explained, “I want you to meet him, 
Cap. He’s been my lucky piece ever since I landed 
in Africa. He’s Audu’s grandpop, and a perfect old 
darling.” 

Then came grandpop, rustling lightly up the veran¬ 
dah steps and sinking as easily as a ballerina into his 
deep bow of great ceremony. His quick eyes seemed 
to take in the flying man with one unobtrusive glance. 

To Sue May’s inward delight Anstruther Jamison 
rose from his chair to acknowledge the low sweeping 
greetings, both courtly gentlemen, though of such 
different color, of worlds so far apart. Sue May made 
simple introductions but Garuba as usual seemed 
posted in all the news. 

“It is he then from whose jirigin sama, sky engine, 
you leapt to the polo ground at Katsina? Yowwa! 
What a leap!” 

Sue May translated. For some few minutes they 
exchanged news of the Flight. Where it was from; 
where it was going; how fast the speed of the planes, 
—when Jamison had an idea. “Look here, if he’s in¬ 
terested ask him if he’d care for a flip.” 

“To sit as in a chair and see the world pass beneath 
me?” The old eyes crinkled with pleasure, the kind 
mouth spread in a wide white smile that accepted 
the invitation in advance of his words. “Never since 
my birth had I thought it possible; always to my old 
age shall I remember.” 


221 


SUNHELMET SUE 


“What about today then? This afternoon?” He 
turned to Sue May. “I can drive him down to the fly¬ 
ing field in my borrowed car here.” 

And five minutes later Sue May addressed an 
empty verandah: “To work, my child, to work!” 

Ten minutes later Sue May glanced up from her 
typewriter. “Yes, Audu, what is it? . . . oh Heav¬ 
ens, that hat . . .” She’d hoped it was lost, was stolen, 
was buried. But here the purple homburg had bobbed 
up again, more sleek, more engulfing, far grander 
than her memory of it. 

“Takardu. Letters,” said Audu. 

Oh yes, the local mail had come in. Two for the 
Professor, one official. That would need an immedi¬ 
ate answer. The third for herself. Sue May slid a 
finger into the envelope and ripped it open. One 
from the Governor. What . . . ? 

“Sue May, be a duck. . . .” Mrs. Dering’s curly 
head again. One always knew it was going to be 
something specially difficult when she started that way. 
Sue May sighed. 

“Be a duck and think up some excuse for me to 
dodge this deadly bridge four this afternoon. Short 
of leprosy and smallpox I have used up every excuse 
in my repertoire.” 

The Professor was right behind her. “Just a few 
changes in these notes before they go off tonight. I 
should have made it clear that the ce was a diphthong 
. . . my awful writing Pm afraid.” 


222 


THE FLIGHT AGAIN 


That half hour of peace with Captain Jamison van¬ 
ished like mist in sunlight. Sue May concocted the 
brilliant excuse that Mrs. Dering had conscientious 
scruples against playing bridge on Thursdays. Was it 
Thursday? . . . No, Friday. Well it would just have to 
be something more sensible than that. She changed 
the Professor’s notes, then was conscious that some¬ 
one still hovered in the doorway. Audu, still in the 
purple homburg. Sue May blinked. 

But Audu was the first actually to reduce the work 
she had on hand. It seemed that the letters of recom¬ 
mendation she was going to write to help find him a 
new position on her departure, would not, now, be 
needed. 

“Oh?” asked Sue May, interested. “What then is 
this new position?” 

“Second boy,” Audu swelled visibly with pride. 
“In the household of the Station Magistrate.” 

Yes, a distinct step up for Audu. But S.M. . . . 
oh Heavens, she must remember to return his bicycle 
and thank him for it. One more thing to do. She 
scribbled a note on her pad, glanced up again. 

“That’s splendid, Audu. I’m so glad. But,” she 
hesitated, then took the plunge, “You won’t wear that 
hat, will you, Audu?” 

Audu’s eyes danced with delight. “The hat, M’a,” 
he exulted, “that hat she got me new job.” 




Chapter Nineteen 

LOST: RUM A CAVE 

T he Governor’s letter had been courteously en¬ 
thusiastic. But . . . Sue May, on the clubhouse 
terrace, awaiting her partner for the third dance of the 
evening, found herself still quoting bits of it to her¬ 
self. 

Yes, when you considered it carefully it had been 
very enthusiastic; it was the Ruma cave part that hurt 
so terribly. Why, Ruma cave was her own, her very 
own discovery; it might have lain buried, lost, unex¬ 
plored for years and years longer, perhaps another 
century if she herself hadn’t been a friend of Garuba 
Jos’, if Garuba hadn’t had the absurd idea that she 
was hunting buried treasure, if she hadn’t taken Audu 
for her own secretary ... if, oh any number of 
things. But all hers. Her very own. 

And now the Governor, quite reasonably of course, 
wrote to her: “Sir Alexander Murdock himself may 
be available to direct the excavation. A Government 
grant is definitely forthcoming for the purpose. I 
can give you my personal assurance that nothing but 
the most up-to-date scientific means will be employed; 
if anything less than the best obtainable is suggested 


224 


LOST: RUM A CAVE 

I will refuse to let a trowel-full of earth be turned. 
I think however we may say that this amazing find 
will be the beginning of archaeology in this country 
and I can only express myself as deeply grateful to 
you for placing this information at our disposal.” 
There was some more of course about the black bowl 
from Yar which was already on it’s way to London 
to an expert. 

Well, that was all right. But Ruma, her pet Ruma 
cave, had been taken completely out of her hands. 
Oh well . . . 

Her partner appeared, that keen-faced young N.C.O., 
who was Captain Jamison’s mechanic and technical 
expert on the Flight. They swung at once onto the 
floor. An efficient dancer, but his soul was still in en¬ 
gines. 

“I haven’t had a chance to thank you,” he saw Sue 
May’s look of perplexity, “about those spindles, I 
mean. They’ve cabled home and the design’s being 
changed. I’d told them and told them, but it was only 
after you told them,” he grinned down at her, “that 
they began to listen.” 

Oh yes, of course. Sue May remembered now. 

The N.C.O. developed his subject. “There’s been 
forced landings and forced landings on account of 
those cussed spindles; must have cost the Government 
thousands of pounds and there’d have been some 
bad accidents before long . . . there’d be a lot of 
people grateful to you, Miss Innis, if they only knew.” 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Of course he was exaggerating but all the same it 
was balm to a wounded spirit, and this would be some¬ 
thing to tell Karl too. But it wasn’t the same as Ruma 
and after all gratitude should really be to this N.C.O., 
not to her; it was his discovery not hers. Just as . . . 
well, just as the rock paintings in Ruma cave had been 
hers. 

Zaria Club was very gay tonight. Long temporary 
leads had brought electric light from the railway, there 
were festoons of colored paper, and lanterns dangled 
from every beam. Oh, quite a gala evening. And 
hot! Hot as West Africa was ever thought to be. 
Only at dances did you get the Equator doing its 
worst. The airmen, very red and shiny as to face, very 
jaded and somewhat hollow eyed from nearly two 
weeks of tropical entertainment, circled languidly in 
their white uniforms. There were other uniforms too, 
the West African Frontier Force, known as the Waffs, 
and stationed permanently in Zaria. Never any lack 
of dancing men in this station. But Sue May was be¬ 
ginning to tire of station dances. 

“Let’s go outside,” she suggested as they swung 
near the open doorway. 

“Thank heaven!” breathed the N.C.O. fervently. 
“ This Africa is nice to visit but I wouldn’t like to live 
here.’ ” He quoted the ancient platitude. “Don’t know 
how you keep up the pace out here.” 

“We don’t!” gurgled Sue May. “Each station turns 
it on to welcome the heroes, and collapses as soon 


226 


LOST: RUM A CAVE 

as you’ve flown off again. It’s better out here isn’t it? 
I almost think there’s a little breeze.” 

The moonlight had at least the appearance of cool¬ 
ness. Soon Captain Jamison, who had been patrolling 
the floor with the stout and beaming wife of a rail¬ 
way official, appeared and claimed the next dance with 
Sue May. 

‘‘Let’s stay out here, and the further away from the 
music, the better,” was her idea. “I know that rumba 
record, the High School band played it two years 
ago and the boy next door used to practice it on his 
cornet for weeks; I don’t feel I can bear it again.” Sue 
May had a small white purse in her hand and as they 
paced along the road she slipped a heavy article from 
it. “Since you’re interested in this country, Cap, would 
you care for a memento of Nigeria? It was the first 
thing I bought when I landed in Africa, it’s brought 
me luck”. . . she had a twinge as she remembered 
Ruma Cave, “sort of.” 

He balanced the foolish little brass rhino on his palm. 
Nice the way his face lit up. “Yes. Fake, isn’t he, but 
isn’t he jolly!” 

Oh, that was smart of him to guess right away, and 
even in the moonlight, that it wasn’t genuine native 
work. 

“That comes of being stationed in Egypt,” explained 
the Captain. “It’s got to such a state there that they’ve 
local imitations of Birmingham fake antiquities. By 
the way, I had a great trip with your old pal Garuba. 

227 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Thought he’d fall out of the bus, the way he craned 
overboard. He’d taken up a bag of shillings, about 
fifty pounds I should guess, and wanted to drop it 
over Zaria market by way of largesse. I persuaded 
him to drop a message in a streamer instead, as it 
wouldn’t kill so many people! Now he wants to buy 
a plane for his own use I gather. Grand old bird, 
isn’t he?” 

For once Sue May wasn’t interested in Garuba Jos. 
Now she was alone with Captain Jamison and there 
was time for a talk, she wanted to share with him her 
secret of the Ruma Cave, a secret not much longer if 
it was about to be given to the world. It would ease a 
little the ache and hurt pride over the Governor’s 
matter of fact assumption that the discovery belonged 
to everybody, to the public, if she could talk to some¬ 
one about it. Then too, at the back of Sue May’s 
mind was tugging a horrid little temptation. Soon 
Captain Jamison would be gone, on his way to an¬ 
other station and another, with the Flight. She might 
never see him again. Probably wouldn’t. And except 
Jamison, nobody but the District Officer of Katsina 
knew about Yar and her photographic discoveries 
there. She herself had the photos and the negatives 
. . . why she hadn’t had time yet even to share that 
with Professor Dering, and by some miracle—if they 
were going to take Ruma Caves away from her like 
this—she hadn’t written about it to Karl. Why not 
. . . she turned the thought over in her mind . . . 


228 


LOST: RUM A CAVE 

why not keep Yar to herself, keep it as her secret— 
photographs and all ? Nobody need know. Sometime, 
years from now, when she’d finished the French course 
in archaeology, she could come back, spring her dis¬ 
covery on an astonished world, and have that at least 
for her very own. It certainly wouldn’t be robbing 
anybody. Yes, it surely was an idea. Sue May began 
to talk very fast. All about the Ruma Caves and what 
she’d found there. 

The Flight Commander had sufficient knowledge of 
archaeology to be properly impressed. “By Jove, a 
kind of ancestral portrait gallery! Gosh, I’d like to 
be there when they uncover it and photograph it! 
Hope they have the sense to use special lenses and 
color screens, you can get a lot that way that’s too 
faded for the eye to spot. And you’ve surrendered 
your whole interest in the discovery?” 

A loose stone on the road came at just the right 
moment. Sue May kicked it to release her suppressed 
resentment. “The Governor assumed that I would. 
Oh he was quite right of course and thanked me very 
nicely for it and now Sir Alexander Murdoch, the 
biggest man in his line, will probably take it over. Of 
course I couldn’t have handled it, it was unique, 
but ...” If she kept on talking, like this, she’d 
burst into tears. Nobody made two discoveries like 
Ruma in a lifetime. Yes sir, she was certainly going 
to keep Yar to herself till she could come back and 
have it for her own. 


229 


SUNHELMET SUE 


They had swung round, were drawing close to the 
clubhouse now and consciously the Captain hung 
back, slackened his pace. “Pretty fine to give it all 
up, takes a scientist to do a thing like that; like handing 
over a great cure or a great invention as a free gift to 
the world.” His voice was warm with respect. “And 
look here, Miss Sue May Innis,” he tossed the little 
rhino in his palm, apparently too embarrassed to 
look at her, “I’ve . . . I’ve got to see you again you 
know, this isn’t going to be goodbye. You’ll write 
won’t you. . . ?” 

Yes, she’d write, Sue May assured him, a little 
absently, preoccupied with all those nice things he’d 
said about her. 

“That is ... I mean to say . . . Oh dash it all, 
you’re so darned sincere, so honest . . . I’ve never 
met anyone like you . . . that’s one reason I want to 
go to that French school you spoke of.” 

Sue May grinned in sudden relief. Something in¬ 
side her mind had given way, melted, showing her 
what she was going to do. “That’s all right. I promise 
to keep in touch with you.” They were almost on 
the terrace now, bright with its lights and gaiety. And 
it did seem gay. Funny it hadn’t, just half an hour 
ago. 

“When do you leave Zaria? A week? And then 
where. . . .” 

“The States of course, by way of England. But 
first—” Sue May took the first step of the terrace and 


2 30 


LOST: RUMA CAVE 


her resolution together. “First I’m stopping in Lagos 
to see the Governor. I’ve got to show him some 
photographs you know. And tell him all about our 
discovery of Yar. That too is something to ... to 
tell the world.” 


2 i' 


Chapter Twenty 

CONSPIRACY 

S ue may felt as though the town band and the vil¬ 
lage fire department had turned out to speed her 
departure, so many of her friends were gathered this 
evening on the Zaria station platform. As the flying 
people had gone two days ago, Zaria, thrown on its 
own resources for entertainment, had flocked down en 
masse, in evening dresses and black or starched white 
dinner coats. People whom Sue May had seen before 
but had never spoken to and people whom she was 
sure had never seen her before nor even heard her 
name had been drawn into the eddy. Anyway, seeing 
people off on the boat train for home was one of 
Nigeria’s social amusements, a sort of foretaste of 
England to these homesick white people. 

Sue May, the busy and efficient, would at the last 
minute have forgotten half her belongings if Mrs. 
Dering hadn’t accidentally and with seeming casual¬ 
ness reminded her of this and that, and if Audu hadn’t 
bicycled down on her own, or rather the S.M.’s push- 
bike, with the small purse that held all her loose 
change and the key to her typewriter, carried beneath 
his purple homburg. But she did get off in the end. 


232 


CONSPIRACY 


Goodbyes to other homegoing travellers echoed and 
swirled around her. 

“Were going home next month, if you stop over in 
England long enough ...” That was the S.M. and 
Mrs. S.M. Yes, Sue May had their address. But she 
knew she wouldn’t be in England longer than to 
change to her ship for home. Her home. 

And that beefy red faced soldier man, quite pathet¬ 
ically, “You’ll be in time to see the huntin’ in Devon¬ 
shire.” 

Well, the maples on the hill back of the aerodrome 
would be all aflame when she arrived. 

Garuba Jos was there, bending low in greetings, 
Mrs. Dering smiling a little tearfully, the Professor 
grinning, broadly and reassuringly. The guard’s 
whistle. But where was Audu? Sue May craned her 
head out, looked for him in vain. The goodbyes grew 
more facetious. 

“Don’t forget that parrot for Aunt Maria . . . don’t 
forget to send the ship back ...” 

“Goodbyeee ...” called Sue May frantically. 
Waved. Waved. Waved for the final time. Zaria was 
gone. Would she ever see it again? 

Better get busy and make oneself comfortable in 
here. She turned to rearrange her dressing case and 
hatbox, and there was someone already putting them 
in order. Audu! 

“Why why,” gasped Sue May in English. “I thought 
you had another job, Audu. . . .” 


233 


SUNHELMET SUE 


“Canton menti. . . . The Station Magistrate . . . 
He tell me I go with you to Lagos, and give me 
ticket.” 

Oh, how nice of him! 

An old stager now, Sue May no longer, as on the 
way up, stretched her ears to catch casual phrases in 
the magic new language, but actually leaned from the 
window to chat with the Fulani milk girls, with the 
women who sold bananas, with the boys who brought 
fresh peanuts, grounds nuts, to the train. She haggled 
at Illorin for a woven grass dressing basket in bright 
colors, giving back to the toothless old trader his own 
coin in repartee. 

Shabby of clothes after the long tour in the bush, 
other leave-goers joined the train, surged up and 
down the corridors and greeted each other, loudly, 
cheerily. All this forward-looking talk of home and 
England made it easier to think of America, of High 
School and of Dad and Karl, made it easier to realize 
that she was going home herself. She’d been working 
so hard right up to the last minute that she’d never 
quite taken it in before. 

And over and under and round it all came the 
thought of Yar, of surrendering any claim she might 
have as discoverer of that ancient buried city. Now 
that she’d made up her mind it was no longer de¬ 
pressing. She was giving something to the world. 
Captain Jamison had put it that way, doing in her 
own small way what Carnegie and other big public 


2 34 


CONSPIRACY 


benefactors had done. And it wasn’t so very small 
at that! 

A night of rushing through the darkness, a day and 
a further night through the thick jungle of the south 
that had been her first introduction to Africa. And 
never quite absent from her thoughts the names of 
Yar and Ruma. So it seemed quite natural that the 
Governor’s personal car should be at the wharfside 
railway station and that the private secretary whom she 
remembered from the Governor’s dinner should come 
up to her and say “Miss Innis? His Excellency would 
be much obliged if you’d let me drive you round to 
breakfast at Government House.” And then reas¬ 
suringly “There’ll be no danger of the ship sailing 
without you.” 

And then, for the Governor was a busy man, Sue 
May opened a package at the breakfast table. It 
wasn’t a big packet, for prints of airplane photographs 
take up little space and the note inside had been briefer 
still. 

The Governor read it and smiled “Incredible. And 
. . . but I’d better explain . . . that Ruma find of 
yours Miss Innis. It had to go to the public of course. 
Too big for just one person. Though ever since I 
wrote to you I’ve been worried. Nobody, it seemed to 
me, could make two such stupendous finds in a life¬ 
time and to take this from you, even with your consent 
seemed intolerable. So much so that I haven’t, in point 
of fact gone any further in the matter.” 


235 


SUNHELMET SUE 


Oh that was decent of him, thought Sue May. 

“Of course you could have been financially com¬ 
pensated,” Sir Henry accepted another cup of coffee 
from Lady Goodyear. “But that really wouldn’t make 
up for taking from you what might be even a lifetime 
occupation. But I was mistaken. You apparently, 
can make two such discoveries in a lifetime!” 

He was looking through the airplane photographs, 
making a mosaic of them, pushing aside the break¬ 
fast dishes that lay before him. 

So he really did think the Yar photographs were im¬ 
portant? Curious that he didn’t mention the name. 
Did that mean . . . ? 

It did. Lady Goodyear had left the breakfast table, 
the private secretary was given some urgent duty 
elsewhere, then Sir Henry spoke freely for the first 
time. 

“We haven’t of course the necessary funds for both 
Yar and Ruma excavations and . . . amazing, most 
amazing, these photographs ... Yar may well prove 
to be the more important of the two. A city, an en¬ 
tire city . . . one can trace walls, separate quarters of 
the town.” He shuffled through the photographs. 
“One can say almost what were their occupations by 
the design and character of roads and buildings. And 
my theory about Yar,”—he beamed above his glasses 
at her, “it confirms it completely. But goes far further 
than I had dreamed. A civilization must have indeed 
ended there. There perhaps in earlier days a civiliza- 

236 


CONSPIRACY 


tion may even have been born. We will have no in¬ 
expert hands meddling with this site, will tolerate no 
partial hasty work such as would be demanded by 
public clamour were your discovery made known.” 

So that meant, that must mean . . . Sue May anx¬ 
iously, hopefully screwed her napkin into a dishrag. 

“Without considering your claims as discoverer, 
or your personal wishes. . . .” 

Sue May wondered whether she could bear the blow. 
To hand the place over with a gesture was one thing. 
To have it coldly appropriated like this was another. 
And he wasn’t being very tactful either. 

“. . . it would still seem that there is only one person 
who should be placed in charge, who would take the 
greatest possible interest in the work. I have given 
my reasons why the excavations must be postponed; as 
lack of public funds. Then perhaps in five, or at the 
most ten years’ time we could consider the expense of 
a preliminary clearing of the site of Yar. If by then 
you can have acquired the formal training such as 
would justify us in calling in your aid and if you are 
willing and able to undertake the task. . . .” 

All the remainder of his words meant the same in¬ 
conceivable thing. That Sue May was to keep the Yar 
secret. Her secret. That she was to hurry and collect 
all possible qualifications for the job. And was then 
to return to West Africa, and with all the resources of 
the Government behind her, to lay bare the long- 
forgotten secrets of this town she had discovered. 


237 


SUNHELMET SUE 


“Keep the photos,” the Governor handed them to 
her. “Or if you have the heart, burn them for yet 
greater safety. And when you are ready and furnished 
with the diplomas of your profession, Miss Innis, 
cable me the one word, YAR. Well,” he shoved back 
his chair and rose from the breakfast table. “I wish you 
bon voyage; and frankly, Miss Innis, I envy you.” 

Oh it was totally, supremely impossible. Her mind 
still occupied with the impossibility Sue May was 
driven to her ship, mounted the gangplank, found her 
own small cabin, went out to wave goodbye to Audu, 
standing on the wharf as they pulled slowly away. 
Audu, who would return to Zaria tonight on the Rich 
Mixed, but who had promised to come to her as her 
secretary if ever . . . no, whenever she should return 
to Nigeria. Impossible! 

And there had been a cable too. Almost sensible, 
matter-of-fact, in comparison. From the States and 
reading: “Big government contract for the C 37. If 
still wish French archaeological school money available 
and thoroughly agree.” 

Good old Dad! Good old C 37! Good old Governor! 
And good old Yar! 

Beside all this it was almost prosaic to find Mrs. 
Fish at the luncheon table as the ship steamed down 
the bay. Not really surprising to hear her introduction 
of some important personage she seemed to have in 
tow. . . . 

“And this is dear Miss Innis, of whom of course 

238 


CONSPIRACY 


you’ve heard. The young American archaeologist you 
know!” 

Just as though, well just as though Sue May had 
already finished High School, had won all those for¬ 
eign diplomas and things in France, had excavated Yar 
the Forgotten, and had written her monumental trea¬ 
tise;—“Some Aspects of Early West African Civiliza¬ 
tion.” 

Just as though, in fact, Sue May had already arrived 
and was one of Mrs. Fish’s dear pet lions! 

Sue May sank into her chair at the table and reached 
for the butter. She simply couldn’t take in any more 
thrills before lunch, thank you! 


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